You And I
by BDewitt
Summary: Johanna Mason lives comfortably on the outside of the Panem High School's social circles. However, her life is forever altered when Katniss Everdeen moves into town. High School AU Joniss! Features all our HG favorites: Finnick, Peeta, Haymitch, Effie, Gale, everyone. Read and review! M for language/sex.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Very Brief Note: I'd love to hear what y'all think of my high school AU Joniss, so please let me know! Drop me a PM if you are so inclined with questions and/or constructive criticism or just to say hi. I haven't written fanfic in years but I couldn't get this story out of my head whilst I wrote an actual book, lol. All of our fun Hunger Games characters will make an appearance, btw.

PS: I will undoubtedly reference a lot of music since that's important in this story and my area of expertise, and I will put the credit for the lyrics at the bottom (if I don't explicitly mention it in the text) if you're interested in what's going on musically. And you should be because I have badass taste, guys. :) - T.

* * *

"It's not gonna hit me in the head?"

Primrose Everdeen looked apprehensively up toward the cerulean sky, the color Katniss thought put itself in Prim's eyes when she was a baby. Her cornsilk hair, plaited in two matching (but rather frayed) braids down her back, tied in two neat blue bows fell dow her back as her head tilted upward. Her button-down blouse tucked into her pleated blue skirt, except for the little duck tail that nearly always stuck out in the back.

Katniss smiled fondly down at her sister as she held her large archery bow at her side. Her brown leather jacket was slightly too warm for the August weather, but the overzealous air-conditioning on the ride over had made her unseasonably cold. The gray cotton Beatles t-shirt stuck to her skin beneath the oppressive leather as the sun gleefully pounded on to her back.

"No, little duck. As long as you," she bent down, holding her sister by her arms in place to prevent the squirmy pre-teen from moving any more, "stay put." A tiny, high-pitched noise filled their ears, Katniss's arrow whizzed next to them, implanting itself in the weed-filled crack in the cement. Primrose clapped excitedly, jumping up and down on her ballet flats.

"Katniss Everdeen, quit horsing around and help me move these boxes, please?" Mrs. Everdeen called from the cracked front steps of their new, two-story craftsman home. The girl in question stood up straight, her plaited hair whipping behind her as she looked guiltily toward her mother. Her younger sister pouted her tiny pink lip out while she picked up Katniss's arrow and handed it back to her.

Katniss threw her bow down into the tall grass next to them and picked up one of their oversized cardboard boxes and followed her mother inside their new home. The interior was smaller than their previous home, but Katniss couldn't deny how beautiful the woodwork was that lined each doorway, even if it did make the place seem smaller than it was. Admittedly, now that it was just the three of them, they didn't need much space. She and Primrose now had separate rooms which at sixteen, Katniss was extremely grateful for. Prim was a precocious twelve-year-old and remarkably studious, but their age difference cracked at the edges as they grew older. Twelve and sixteen seemed about as far apart as three and thirty. Whilst Primrose was still content to sit on their swing-set back home, Katniss was beginning to prefer other, more adult activities.

"Get moving, Catnip!" the cheerful male voice called from behind her. Katniss shook herself from her reverie and whirled on the heel of her leather boot, coming face to face with her cousin Gale. They could have been twins, Katniss thought as she stared into his gray eyes that mirrored her own. Their hair had the same ruddy brown hue to it, in stark contrast to her mother and her sister's blonde locks. She ducked into the next room, a tiny front room with no furniture, and set the box down on the hardwood floors.

Moving to Panem had been a hard decision for the Everdeen family. After her father had died three years earlier, her mother's health had begun to fade and her school marks declined rapidly. Wanting a fresh start they moved almost across the country to the town of Panem, where her father's brother had settled his family. Her cousin Gale, her Aunt Hazelle, and Gale's three younger brothers and one younger sister. A new beginning cached with family seemed like the best way to give everyone in the Everdeen family a chance at making a new life.

So here they were, the second house in on Twelfth Street, in the faraway town of Panem. The town's layout had fascinated Katniss when she used to visit as a child during the summer. The main buildings were all situated together in the hub in the center of town, with six streets sticking out like wheel spokes. The streets closer to the center of town were lined with sprawling, columned homes inhabited by the town's elite members. As you went further out the homes became more modest until you came to what used to be Thirteenth Street, right behind where the Everdeens now made their residence. Thirteenth Street had been converted into a railway station a few years back.

"Damn." Her mother's voice startled Katniss from her thoughts. She peered into the kitchen, twisting her body around the doorframe to look inside. Her mother was elbow deep in one of their smaller boxes, noisily rummaging through the contents of their "junk drawer" from back home. The older woman's piercing blue eyes met her daughter's soft gray ones and she sat back on her heels defeatedly. "Of all the damn things to forget, a hammer."

Katniss raised one of her dark eyebrows and took one step into the tiled kitchen. "And you need a hammer right now because...?"

Mrs. Everdeen sighed exasperatedly, running her fingers through the few pieces of blonde hair that had gone rogue from her tight bun. She pushed on her knees to stand up straight and picked up one of their kitchen chairs with one hand. A leg of the chair dangled lamely from its wooden brethren, mocking Mrs. Everdeen's attempts at wrangling it with her other hand.

She placed the chair on the floor and rummaged in the pockets of her jeans. She produced a small, crumpled bundle of bills and pushed her hand out toward her daughter. "Run down to the store in town and grab us a hammer, please? I want to fix this damn chair before I use it for a fire."

Katniss emitted a short laugh, stepping carefully around their haphazard piles of boxes to retrieve the few dollars from her mother's hand. Her mouth quirked in a half-smiled while she took in her mother's frazzled appearance. Frazzled was a much preferable alternative to stoic or sad, which seemed to be the only two emotions her mother could handle after her father's death.

"We don't even have a fireplace." Katniss grumbled that last thought as she just about tangoed around the other boxes that lined the small entranceway to their home. Her hand reached down and ruffled her sister's hair as she crossed their yard toward the street, making her way down the short twelve blocks toward the center of town.

* * *

Panem was considered a middle-class town in overall terms, with the government-subsidized apartment housing on Eleventh Street directly contrasted to the McMansions that lined First and Second Street. During the few summers she had spent with her cousins, Katniss understood that after Fifth Street, it was considered the "poorer" parts of town, and those kids low on the popularity totem pole. Gale was one of the few exceptions to that rule on account of puberty hitting him early, leaving him with a stocky, athletic build, rugged face and attractive height.

Katniss didn't give much thought to the hierarchy of high school back home and she was certain she wouldn't care here, either. She had a few friends before her father died, but after that she had essentially devolved into a hermit, only very seldom peeking out to see how the world was doing. The only person to infiltrate her shell had been her younger sister Primrose, who either out of sheer desperation for love or actual camaraderie, was the reason Katniss did anything productive after her father's death.

Sweat began dotting her forehead as she finally got to the center of town. Peering down the block her eyes read the various marquees of the small shops, trying to identify one that would contain the desperately-needed hammer. The green-painted wooden sign a few doors down seemed like her best bet: Mason's General Store.

Grumbling to herself about how stupid it was to wear a leather jacket in the summer and how ridiculous it was to repair a chair midst a move, she opened the screen door to the store. She was greeted by a small bell chime above her head and the lingering smell of pine and sawdust. The store was cute; wooden shelves and display cases lining the walls, displaying an alarmingly varied myriad of items. Back home they had Starbucks and Wal-Mart, brightly-lit convenience stores that sold batteries and bananas and lottery tickets. Here in Panem, they had Mason's General Store. Quaint.

A small wire fan blew the stale, hot air from inside directly toward the door, pushing the errant strands of Katniss's hair back. She could hear the buzz of other fans set up throughout the store, and began to wonder how far back it actually went. It was misleading from the small exterior. A wailing saxophone crackled through what must be ancient speakers, an old jazz tune Katniss couldn't identify.

"You look hot." The brunette started, placing her hand over her chest as she searched the store for the source of the voice. Finally, behind a register that was packed with gum, air fresheners and other odds and ends nobody ever needs but always seems to line their purses, she saw her.

Saw her wasn't exactly right; she ogled her. A smirking, petite, raven-haired girl with red streaks lined in her tousled hair. Wide set brown eyes that were so heavily shrouded with black eyeliner Katniss thought they looked like midnight, as if she was staring into a starry sky. The girl's athletic body was partially concealed by the register, but her feminine collarbone and slightly muscled forearms were bright against the onyx, ribbed wifebeater she had hugging every inch of her breasts and abdomen. A pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses sat atop her what looked like intentionally messy hair.

"I'm sorry?" Katniss finally sputtered, knitting her sweaty eyebrows in confusion. Here this girl was, shaped like a model with her tight clothes and looking seemingly unaffected by the heat, and she was sweating like a whore in church. Great first impression.

Johanna stared at the girl in the doorway, tilting her head slightly to the left to take in the girl's appearance. What she had meant to say was the girl looked like her internal temperature was probably higher than it should be. Her forehead was glimmering with sweat due both to the heat and the fact that she was wearing an out of season brown leather jacket.

"Um, what I meant was, it's a little hot for a jacket don't you think?" Johanna mentally cursed herself for sounding so awkward. However, it wasn't every day that a gorgeous girl walked into the store that wasn't some atrocious preppy girl from school materializing in the doorway like a demon summoned from hell to taunt her.

Katniss slowly took in the darker-haired girl's words, only just realizing now that she was still standing directly in the doorway when the bell chimed behind her. Startled again she bumbled backward and allowed an old lady to mosey into the store.

"Hello Johanna," the older woman greeted in a crinkled voice, matching her crinkled face and crinkled dress. Why do old people still dress like they did when they were twenty-five? Do people just stop evolving their wardrobe after twenty-five? Does your closet stand frozen in time? Whatever the style is then, that's what you're stuck with. Unluckily for her generation, they'd be stuck with leggings tucked into Ugg boots.

A warm smile erupted on Johanna's face as she leaned forward on the counter. "Afternoon, Mags. Here for more yarn already?"

The older woman smiled and reached on her tippy-toes to pinch Johanna's nose. As Katniss watched the exchange she saw the red blush flare on Johanna's cheeks as those deep brown eyes darted briefly to her and then back to the woman, and she couldn't help the thought of how adorable it looked. An unfamiliar fluttering began to spasm in her stomach and she placed her hand over it, trying to calm it like you would a screaming baby.

"Yes, dear. Is your mother here? I'd like to say hello to her as well."

Johanna nodded and motioned toward the vast back of the store with her arm. "She's back there somewhere, tinkering with the air-conditioning. Hence the _unbearable heat_!" Johanna yelled, trying to attract her mother's attention. "You know how she is. Just holler for her and she'll pop out of a crevice like a little magical troll."

Mags smiled, every little wrinkle on her face creasing as she did so. "Thank you, Johanna." A loud wail of a singer interrupted their conversation but the elderly woman didn't seem bothered. "You're listening to my Bessie Smith recommendation!" the woman exclaimed, clapping her hands together.

"I _love_ it," Johanna responded effusively, her brown eyes lighting up with a childlike wonder. Katniss couldn't help but stare into them like a solar eclipse. Katniss was always attracted to people when they talked about their passions; clearly whatever music was playing struck deep within Johanna. It made her even more attractive to Katniss, which was rapidly becoming a problem because all she wanted was a hammer. "It's fucking visceral."

"Language, Johanna," Mags admonished with a sly smile on her face. "I'll be sure to bring you that scarf I've been working on next time I visit." She patted Johanna's hand before she waddled down the wooden corridors toward the back of the store.

Johanna widened her eyes as she looked over to the other girl who was staring at her almost enough to make Johanna, a natural exhibitionist, slightly nervous. "You like The Beatles, huh?"

Katniss's eyes clouded with confusion until the black-haired girl gave a brief nod toward her shirt. "Oh." Katniss pulled the material away from her skin and looked down at the weathered graphic tee. "My dad was a big fan. He had all their records."

Johanna's lips pursed. "They're everyone's dad's favorite artist," she remarked with a snarky but friendly grin. "Favorite album?"

"Uh-um,"Katniss stuttered, totally unprepared for the girl's questioning. She was here for a hammer. However, something about the magnetism in Johanna's eyes made Katniss want to answer her. "I guess the white album?"

Johanna made a scoffing noise that began in her throat and came out her nose and she disappeared behind the counter. Katniss lifted herself on her toes to try and see what the other girl was doing. The music above their heads stopped abruptly. After a few moments of silence an electric guitar broke through and the room was filled with the sound of the Beatles.

Katniss opened her mouth to ask what Johanna was doing but Johanna placed a finger on her lips to indicate quiet. They stood across from each other in silence as the tune played loudly above their heads. Johanna seemed completely lost like the song had wrapped her in a cocoon, except for her lips that expertly recited the lyrics. It was a love song, a pretty one. Unfortunately Katniss didn't recognize it and couldn't concentrate because she was staring at Johanna's mouth.

Once the music faded, Katniss heard the clicking noise of an unseen LP player turning off. "White album, shmite album," Johanna said finally with a firm shake of her head. "Revolver is where it's at. If _Here, There, and Everywhere _doesn't drop the panties, nothing will."

Again the girl disappeared behind the counter and reappeared with the large white album in her hand. She shook it toward Katniss. "Take it home. If your dad likes the Beatles then I'm sure you have a record player. Listen to Revolver and prepare to have your _world changed_." The way Johanna's low husk of a voice drew out the last two words shot an unfamiliar bolt through Katniss, like an unexpected dip on a rollercoaster, or a really satisfying sneeze. "You can give it back to me another time," Johanna explained, assuring a worry Katniss hadn't even vocalized. "So, you're new in town. What are you here for?"

Katniss stared at her weathered shoes and awkwardly shoved her hands into her jeans pockets. They barely fit so her palms stuck out weirdly. She looped her thumbs into the belt loops to try and make it look like it was intentional. "Oh, um, well my dad died a few years ago so my mom thought we should move here. My cousin Gale lives down the block from us; we just moved to Twelfth Street." As Katniss's gray eyes traveled up from her shoes to the register, to the confused but sympathetic brown eyes of the other girl, she realized she had babbled.

"I meant what brings you in here, to my store," she drawled in a low tone, reigniting the fluttering in Katniss's stomach. "But um, I'm sorry about your father. That's rough." All the brunette did was nod as an answer, embarrassed at her divulgence and the pity the other girl had in her eyes. Actually, not as much pity as Katniss usually got and abhorred. More just empathy.

"Oh." Katniss's cheeks flushed a beet red, almost matching the root with which she shared her moniker. Begrudgingly her eyes met the inquiring gaze of the intimidating girl behind the counter. _Johanna_, the elderly woman had said. Her name sounded lovely but also slightly masculine, much like the woman it was attached to. "I-I need a hammer. Do you have a hammer here?"

Johanna couldn't resist the broadening smile that was threatening to take over her entire face. This girl was absolutely adorable. Not to mention absurdly attractive. Also a lot more alliterations Johanna wasn't in the right state of mind to piece together. "Ah, well, it is a _general_ store, so _generally_ we'd have tools." Her own lips stretched into a smile at her own small joke, faltering slightly when Katniss didn't look amused. "Aisle three, next to the nails and other hammer-related items. Knock yourself out." Katniss nodded her head and began toward Johanna's directed area. "But not literally."

_Not literally_? Johanna mentally swore up and down for making such a lame joke. Who the hell was she? The sixteen-year-old continued to berate herself whilst Katniss sorted through their wares. Mumbling to herself about sounding brainless she put on another record. The light soul of the 1960's record immersed the store in sound and put Johanna at ease. She heard the creaking of the old floorboards as Katniss returned to the front and placed the tool timidly on the counter in front of her.

_I never had a love to call my own. I was about to give up and then you came along._

Johanna looked from the hammer to the girl, then to the hammer and back to the girl. "Hey so feel free to say no to this but um, how about you take the hammer for free, and in return, you let me show you around sometime?" The brunette blushed again, painting her beautiful tanned skin a delightful pink. "I have a bike," Johanna blurted out, a flash of confusion crossing her face at her own words, as if they fell from her mouth without her permission. "I mean, I have a bike that we can use to ride around town. Two bikes."

Katniss was relieved to hear Johanna's nervousness, it helped alleviate the burning sensation of complete idiocy that she was feeling in every inch of her body. She pressed her lips together and the corners of her mouth upturned into a very small, almost imperceptible smile. "That sounds great."

"Really?" Johanna asked without missing a beat, appearing genuinely surprised at Katniss's agreement to hang out with her. She allowed a moment to compose herself and cleared her throat to try and clear the room of the awkwardness that had settled between them like dust. "I mean cool, great. Badass." They stared at each other for a few moments, neither either able to make a normal conversation happen between them. It was like starting a broken lawnmower every time they tried.

Johanna arrested her lower lip between her teeth, scribbling down her phone number on the small pad they kept near the register with more focus than was necessary for such a menial task. She gripped the pad and ripped the paper off, handing it over to the other girl. "Um so when you want to hang out just call me. That's my cell number."

"Thanks." Johanna felt a warmth fill her belly and move its way up her throat to her cheeks, coloring them and revealing an emotion she'd much rather keep to herself. Confidence boosted by Johanna's cute blush, Katniss smiled wider as she retrieved the hammer and the record and started toward the door.

"Wait what's your name?"

Katniss rested the hammer on her shoulder like a soldier with a rifle as she paused. "Katniss Everdeen." Johanna let the name wash over her body like a warm ocean wave._ Katniss Everdeen_. It sounded so beautifully unique like something out of a story book. The taller girl pointed at Johanna with her hammer. "And you're Johanna?"

Johanna's face contorted into some odd mixture of disgust and embarrassment. "Call me Jo. Nobody calls me Johanna except old Mags over there and my mom when she's pissed at me."

"Okay _Jo_," Katniss replied, trying out the nickname. She liked it. "I guess I'll see you soon." A fond smile lingered on her lips for far longer than necessary as Katniss gave her a small wave and exited the store. Johanna rested her elbows on the counter, placing her chin in both of her hands, her eyes gazing out the door at Katniss's body disappearing down the street.

_What you got, I'm just crazy about it. If you're looking for a love that you'll never get tired of... make me yours._

Katniss began her trek back toward her new home, her mood buoyed significantly by her interaction with Johanna. Back home she was nothing special. Nobody went out of their way to be nice to her or give her free hammers or let her borrow albums. Maybe Johanna was a popular girl; she looked athletic so maybe she was a jock, her mother clearly owned a business in town so people probably knew her name, and she exuded a sangfroid that popular kids carried ubiquitously like backpacks and cigarettes.

Besides, she was into cool music Katniss had never heard of, so she must at least marginally cool. Cooler than Katniss Everdeen the new kid with the dead dad and the hot cousin would ever be. For now she could ignore the strange tingling that perked through her body as she imprinted the image of Johanna in her mind. That seemed like a Future Katniss problem, the tingling.

* * *

Music credits: The Beatles "Here There and Everywhere" from the album Revolver. And Bettye Swann's "Make Me Yours" from the album of the same name. The Bessie Smith could be anything she's done, you won't regret a single song if you can find it. "Send Me To The 'Lectric Chair" and "I Ain't Got Nobody" are great choices.


	2. Chapter 2

Katniss arose the next day to the harsh sunlight beaming through her un-curtained windows on either side of her bed. She grumbled swear words at the inconvenient solar intruder. Folding her body over she reached down to touch her toes and gripped them through the thin sheet. Her eyes moved around the room slowly, taking in the architecture of her room. They had finished moving in her furniture the night before after a dinner of pizza eaten on the floor, but she hadn't gotten around to putting any of her things away.

Filled cardboard boxes lay on the floor as nagging reminders of her obligation to remove their contents. While the room was slightly smaller than her room back home, she liked the exposed wooden beams that lined the inside of her ceiling. She stretched to her side to retrieve her cell phone from its resting place next to her pillow to squint at the time. 8:37AM. _Gross_. Any time before eleven am was disgusting to Katniss. The only time getting up early was remotely acceptable was when she would go hunting in the woods with Gale during the summer. With regret she whipped off her sheets and placed both bare feet flat on the hardwood floors.

After quickly checking her Facebook and Twitter Katniss hopped out of bed to brush her teeth in the bathroom she would share with her sister. It felt a little Brady Bunch-esque considering in her old house she had her own bathroom to make a mess of. Now she would be forced to _clean up after herself _because Prim was such a little neat freak._  
_

She ditched her toothbrush on the counter haphazardly and entered her room again, rummaging through boxes to try and find clean clothes. With a sigh she settled on clean underwear and a clean bra, the same jeans from yesterday and an old tank top. The brunette pulled her hair back into a ponytail and gazed around the room with a sour look on her face. This was her life now. Unpacking her things and making a new home.

* * *

Halfway across town, Johanna Mason was already up and awake, scarfing down a bowl of cereal at the breakfast counter in her kitchen. Music blared from a set of speakers above them, blasting _Appalachian Spring _by Aaron Copland; the only proper way to greet the morning as Johanna saw it. It was twenty-five minutes of pure American string and horn goodness that always motivated her to start her day.

Her mother Polly tolerated this because it was much easier to listen to than some of Johanna's other musical interests. Johanna was sometimes a tough nut to crack in terms of her mood, but she almost always put on an album or song that reflected her inner dialogue. If she went upstairs and heard some unintelligible screaming, she knew Johanna had a bad day at school. If Johanna listened to Tchaikovsky or Hans Zimmer's _The Dark Knight _soundtrack, Polly knew her daughter was sad. It was an easy way for a single parent of an enigmatic child to connect to her. Music has a way of opening doors that are otherwise locked.

"Johanna, I almost forgot. I'm going to the Diamant's house to help Mr. Diamant with his new deck. You'll have to open the store for me today. Is that cool?" Polly Mason leaned on the counter in front of her daughter, dangling the keys to the general store in front of her.

"Sure thing." Johanna snatched the keys from her mother and shoved them in her back pocket. "I hate that you help them. Their daughters are absolute fucking nightmares at school. The brother is literally like a half a chromosome away from actually being a potato."

Polly sighed, petting her daughter on the head. Johanna scowled at the childish show of affection which only served to make her mother grin even more. "Glimmer and Cashmere are lovely girls. They are nothing but polite when I've met them. Gloss is kind of a meat head, I will agree with you there."

"Yes, and like all other Disney villains they turn into green-tinged monsters when their parents backs are turned." Johanna pointed her spoon across the counter at her mother, dripping milk all over the granite. "Did you know that last year they kicked a girl off the cheerleading squad for wearing the _wrong socks_?" The teenager leaned over her bowl. "The wrong socks. What kind of sick fuck even _looks _at socks, never mind gives enough of a shit to call another person out on it?"

Polly let out a hearty laugh at her daughter's story as she pulled her hair back into a tight bun. She retrieved her tool belt from the kitchen table and fastened it around her waist. As she passed her daughter she kissed the top of her head. "Don't get into any trouble. And keep the music to a reasonable level, will you? I'll be home late tonight; we're having our first PTA meeting of the school year."

Johanna grinned with a mouth full of Lucky Charms cereal. "I certainly wouldn't want to hinder the PTA meeting. How would Panem possibly operate without you?" Polly rolled her eyes and walked out the door, leaving Johanna to enjoy the rest of _Appalachian Spring _and the soggy marshmallows she had saved for last.

* * *

_Sometimes in the morning I am petrified and can't move; awake but cannot open my eyes._

Johanna swept the floor of her mother's store as the music played around her, humming the familiar tune to herself. She hadn't been particularly busy that day so she invited her best (and essentially only) friend Finnick to come and keep her company. The sandy-haired, athletic boy sat on the register's counter, popping Sweet-tarts in his mouth as his heels kicked the wooden front of the counter.

"So you met the new girl already? Spill the beans, Jo, because I won't wait until the first day of school like a peasant." Finnick glared at his friend as he popped another one of the sweet and sour candies in his mouth.

Johanna leaned her chin on the tip of the broom, gazing into the wall as she reimagined Katniss in her brain. It wasn't a difficult endeavor as she had thought about her practically non-stop since the second she walked out the door. Johanna's hair was tied back in its usual ponytail, her aviators tucked into her fitted and partially ripped Smiths t-shirt which hung loosely over her torn black jeans. She scuffed her Converse sneaker against the floor, biting the inside of her cheek. "Her name is Katniss Everdeen. And she -"

"_Katniss_?" Finnick repeated, raising a pale eyebrow. "What the fuck is a Katniss?"

Johanna glared at the green-eyed boy and smacked him with the end of the broom. "I don't know. It's just a name. What the fuck is a Finnick?" Finnick shrugged in a "point taken" way and motioned for her to continue. "She said her father died a few years ago so she and her family moved to Twelfth Street. I think she mentioned being Gale Hawthorne's cousin?"

This bit of information piqued the gossipy teen's interest. His verdigris eyes enlarging like a microscope lens. "Ooh, is she a hottie? Gale's not a bad looking dude, no homo."

Johanna rolled her brown eyes in ire. "Saying 'no homo' doesn't mean anything. Appreciating Gale's attractiveness doesn't make you gay. Sucking his dick makes you gay. And not even then. Just shut up." Johanna took in a deep breath before trying to attempt the rest of her description. "But yes, to answer your question, she is super hot. Like scalding. Like she might actually burn to the touch. The girl is on fire."

Finnick wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at his friend. "Were there sparks? Shall I call for the U-Haul?"

Finnick's lesbian jokes typically flew over Johanna's head; everyone in school knew she was gay and it didn't bother her. She took some flack for it from the stereotypically homophobic popular girls in her school but for the most part, everyone left her alone. Her abrasive attitude was a wonderful set of spiked armor that deflected the hurtful comments some of her peers had thrown at her.

"I don't know if she's gay."

"Johanna Mason has that ever stopped you before?" Finnick asked rhetorically. They both knew fully well that Johanna's favorite pastime other than her music was seducing self-described "straight" girls. It was a gift, what could she say? Some of those same self-described homophobes who teased her at school definitely had found their way into Johanna's sheets at least once.

Her tongue ran along the fronts of her pearly whites in an effort to mask a smile. "Shut your dumb mouth." Finnick grinned, his cheeks dimpling deeply as he did so. Finnick was an interesting person to have as a friend; he was extremely popular and well-liked through the school's social hierarchy. He was one of the few kids who actually had friends from all over town. He was the captain of the swim team and the president of the drama club. His stunning physique and light-hearted good humor made him extremely desirable, especially to the blonde-haired, blue-eyed girls from First Street. Unfortunately for them, Finnick had been in love with the girl next door - Annie Cresta - since they were toddlers. No one else had even come close to touching the deep, intense bond between the two.

Annie was nice enough, Johanna thought, if a little distracted. Her face was always buried in a sketchbook, her red hair frizzing in all directions as she mumbled her thoughts out loud and then drew them. However, Finnick was in love. As his oldest and closest friend, Johanna grew to kind of care about Annie by proxy. Their constant doting on one another bordered on revolting about eighty percent of the time but Johanna tolerated it for the friendship.

The climax of the song came on and Johanna stopped sweeping to use the broom as a microphone. "And sometimes when you're on, you're really fuckin' on! And your friends they sing along and they love you." Johanna dramatically sidled up next to Finnick. "But the lows are so extreme that the good seems fuckin' cheap. And it teases you for weeks in its absence." She took a step back, grasping the broom/microphone with both hands. "But you'll fight and you'll make it through. You'll fake it if you have to. And you'll show up to work with a smile. You'll be better and you'll be stronger, more grown up and a better daughter... or son and a _real good _friend."

As Johanna whirled around with her broom in a dramatic sweep, she came face to face with a certain brunette who was standing in the doorway. Johanna dropped the broom on the floor like it was burning her flesh, her brown eyes wider than the moon as she took in the entertained sight of Katniss.

"Katniss!" Johanna squeaked in a voice that sounded more like an old staircase than a human. The other girl was dressed in tight jeans she had tucked into the same boots from the day before, but a ruby button-down blouse replaced her Beatles t-shirt. Her hair was different as well. To Johanna's untrained eye it looked as if Katniss had actually taken the time to curl it, leaving the shimmering brown locks to fall over her shoulders. Her face was free of sweat with just a hint of a smoky eyeshadow and faint lip gloss. In short, if the mind-numbing embarrassment of having been caught singing into a broom wasn't enough to shake her, Katniss's beauty had done the job nicely.

Johanna snatched up the broom and placed it against the wall, stuffing her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. She didn't dare look over at Finnick because she knew his humungous grin would be a distraction. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. I-If you're busy I can come back another time."

"Busy?" Johanna replied shrilly. Irked at her own squealing voice she cleared her throat. "No, I'm not busy. What's up?" That's right, that sounds good. That sounds casual. Johanna mentally high-fived herself for potentially not fucking up her second encounter with this girl after being caught doing broom karaoke with a bit too much flair.

Katniss's mouth moved into a tiny smile. "I'm supposed to go to the high school and sign up for classes. I have a meeting with the counselor there." Her gray eyes moved awkwardly around the room, avoiding Johanna's penetrating gaze. She had no idea who this boy was on the counter; her immediate assumption was that it must be Johanna's boyfriend. That would explain, sort of, the flare of jealousy rising in her belly. He was Adonis-like attractive with his coiffed blond hair and cheekbones that looked like they were carved out of marble. Like seriously what was he, an ancient Greek statue come to life?

When her attention finally rested back on Johanna she realized she had (embarrassingly) forgotten to finish her sentence. "I um... I was hoping you could help me find the school? A-and her office? Take you up on your offer from yesterday?" The hopefulness in her voice had escaped without her consent. Way to sound like a pathetic creep, Everdeen. Great job.

Johanna was so thoroughly engrossed in watching Katniss's lips move her mind hadn't understood a single word she said. The tone of her voice was low but feminine; a spine-tingling (and other-places-tingling) rasp that sent Johanna to the moon. Luckily for her Finnick wasn't so entranced, so he hopped off the counter and intervened. "She would love to... Katniss, was it?" The tiny smile on Katniss's lips fell slowly into a straight line as she shook the hand of this boy she was mentally preparing as her nemesis. "Finnick Odair. Nice to meet you. Johanna's told me _so much _about you."

The onyx-haired girl's jaw was still open to the point where she was close to catching flies. Of course now Finnick had made her look even more foolish. Anticipating Johanna's mood, Finnick grabbed the broom from its stance against the wall and looked between the two of them. "Sweet-tart?" he offered to Katniss, holding out the small plastic container of candy in his palm. When she shook her head he popped another in his mouth instead. "Your loss. Nobody lives forever so when you see something sweet, you have to grab it quick."

The Greek-statue-looking-boy wet his lips as he talked, sending a wave of revulsion through Katniss that reminded her of her creepy Principal Cray from back home. Lecherous old man who she believed only held his position so he could stare at the asses of teenaged girls all day. "I'll watch the store, Jo," Finnick said finally after the world's most awkward three seconds went by.

"Yeah my mother will be crazy about that idea."

Finnick pretended to look greatly offended, his formerly smirking mouth contorting into an 'O' shape. "For your information, Polly Mason loves me. She has said, on more than one occasion, that she wishes I were her son." He dropped his forehead to drive his point home. "Her _own son. _It's a great honor when a woman says she wishes she painfully pushed you out of her vagina. Don't act like it's not."

Johanna balked and slapped Finnick on his arm. "You _do_ have a big head."

His features softened as he draped his arm over Johanna's shoulder. "I got this. Go help Katniss get to the school. What if she gets jumped by some hooligans on the way there? Do you want that on your conscience? I certainly don't." Not needing permission Finnick strode behind the counter and propped himself up on the wooden stool where Johanna usually sat.

Johanna breathed in another deep breath as her chestnut gaze jumped from Finnick to Katniss. Her blouse was form-fitting and Johanna was easily distracted by the soft curve of her sides as the shirt flared out over her hips. Her mind buzzed forward in time to wonder if Katniss would be the type to be ticklish on her sides. The kind of ticklish that turns into arousal when the light touch of fingertips roughens into a scrape.

Talk about putting the cart before the horse. "It looks like I'm all yours." The impassive look on Katniss's face transformed into a gentle happiness. _Looks like I'm all yours. _Why don't you just ask her to marry you already? Johanna berated herself internally, but externally managed to puppeteer a friendly and not at all creepy (she hoped) smile on her lips.

Katniss turned around to leave and Johanna looked over to Finnick. _'Super hot!' _he mouthed to her, pretending to fan himself like a Southern belle in Georgia heat. With an eye-roll Johanna followed the other girl out of the store and they began their walk down the main street toward the high school.

The day wasn't nearly as excruciatingly hot as the one before. A gentle breeze blew through the tall maple trees that lined Capitol Boulevard, rustling the few leaves that had vacated their trees just a bit too early. Johanna crossed her arms over her chest as the walked, trying to stare at Katniss without getting caught.

"Have you been to Main Street before? Besides yesterday?" Johanna asked, suddenly unable to bear the silence between them any longer.

Katniss nodded her head, picking her gaze up from the ground to stare at the store fronts. "I used to come here some summers when I was little. Gale and I didn't spend much time down here specifically. We liked to go in the woods mostly. Hunting sometimes."

"And what, like, kill people? I don't know anyone who hangs out in the woods except _maybe_ serial killers."

Katniss laughed a husky laugh that turned the corners of Johanna's mouth upward. "How many serial killers do you know?"

They crossed the large lawn that spread out before Panem High School. The Greek revival architecture building was an imposing two-story brick edifice that was just on the edge of town. Johanna always thought it looked more like a town hall than a school. "None personally, but you never know. A girl moves to a new town, immediately needs a hammer, likes to go in the woods. I mean, it's got kind of a serial killer vibe to it, just sayin'."

Johanna held the door for Katniss as the brunette let loose another long laugh. She tucked her loose curls behind her ear as she walked passed the other girl. She stopped in the middle of the doorway, directly in front of Johanna. For a moment she was sure she had imagined the most imperceptible intake of breath that was not her own. "Do I have a serial killer vibe to you, Johanna?"

Johanna was positive the marching band thumping of her heart was loud enough to bounce down the hallways. Katniss smirked at her with a confidence that Johanna had yet to see from her. Not that they knew each other all that well, but it was enough to surprise the hell out of her. "N-no," she uncharacteristically stuttered, watching Katniss walk in the doorway. Her eyes zeroed in to Katniss's behind like a fighter jet to a land target until Katniss peered at her over her shoulder.

Her eyes went back up so fast she was almost dizzy. "But it's always the ones you least expect," Johanna added, her mouth moving back into its typical smirk.

* * *

"Ah, Miss Everdeen! Do come in!" the bubbly counselor, Ms. Effie Trinket, greeted the newest Panem High School alum. Katniss was sure that in all her life, she had never seen someone who looked so unintentionally like Ronald McDonald more than Effie Trinket. Her red hair was miles above her head in tight curls, her pancake make-up making her skin a sickly alabaster white. Her dress was frilly and short, polka-dotted with red dots the size of quarters all over the fabric.

She sat herself on the opulent armchair that was placed directly in front of the large wooden desk Miss Trinket set herself in front of. Katniss roamed her eyes over the intricate carving work, admiring the knots and curves of the dark wood. "This is mahogany."

Katniss put on the closet to "interested" she could muster on her face. "It's beautiful." That seemed like the kind of response she was looking for.

Ms. Trinket beamed, stretching her painted mouth in such a wide smile she almost resembled the Joker. "Thank you." Her manicured nails (also polka dot red) tapped away at her laptop situated next to a few picture frames and a bizarrely large bouquet of flowers. "All right well let's see. Here at Panem High School we have a few core classes that are not optional. We call them 'mandatories,'" Ms. Trinket explained, pursing her Red Queen lips together. "A mathematics, a physical education, a science, and a course in English. Looks here like you tested well back at your old school. Very well in fact."

A rosy tinge came on Katniss's cheeks as Ms. Trinket pored over her school records. She had always tested well; the state-wide exams they had every year, she had scored an eleven out of twelve her first year, and a twelve out of twelve the second year. Her actual grades had suffered, though, as the almost comically clown-like frown drooped on her face.

"Okay, well, here at PHS we believe in a fresh start for everyone," Ms. Trinket said exuberantly. "I will assume your abilities in all your areas of studies did not actually decline with your grades." Her face became serious, but in the way that Prim's face would grow serious when Katniss would talk disparagingly about some teen band she loved. "Losing a loved one is incredibly hard for someone so young to bear. To lose a father that young, well..." Katniss hated how that sentence always trailed. What were people going to say? Were they surprised she survived it? That she didn't just lose herself in a veritable maelstrom of girlish emotion?

Ms. Trinket annihilated the sour look on her face for one that looked like it should have been painted into the side of a carousel: frighteningly happy. "Anyhow, let's get down to business, shall we? You will need to choose three elective courses. I have a list here of some that will fit into your schedule." Over the desk she handed Katniss a small folder with the names and descriptions of the classes.

Katniss mulled over the list disinterestedly, her eyes scoping out things like "pottery" and "study hall." Ms. Trinket watched her expectantly, her eyes lighting up as she watched Katniss read the descriptions. "Well, um, I guess I'll take the study hall, the pottery class, and the music appreciation class?"

"Splendid!" Ms. Trinket exclaimed, snatching the folder back from Katniss and typing away at her keyboard once more. The printer behind her hummed loudly and ejected a lone sheet of paper. The red-haired woman slipped it from the tray and handed it over to Katniss. "Here is your schedule. Classes begin this Monday - approximately three days from today. Your locker number is on there as well. If you have any concerns about your schedule or anything else, you can always come to me."

"Thank you," Katniss replied, standing up from her chair. She nodded gracelessly and made her way out the door, her eyes watching the large painted sign above the threshold that read: REMEMBER - CHINS UP, SMILES ON.

Johanna was sitting against the row of lockers directly outside Effie Trinket's office, staring into the trophy cabinet across from her. Panem didn't have a particularly championship-studded past, but every so often another gold ornament would go into the case. Principal Snow would make an embarrassingly large deal about it even if it was just a chess trophy or the math league. He was a sucker for pomp and circumstance.

Her face lit up as she watched Katniss emerge from the office of Trinket, pushing herself off the ground and crossing the hallway toward her. She snatched the paper from Katniss and skimmed down her schedule. "All right, not bad." Johanna's head bobbed as she read Katniss's schedule. It looked innocent enough, but Johanna was secretly committing the rundown in her memory.

"Do we have any classes together?" Katniss asked as innocuously as possible, raising her eyebrows as she awaited a response. The way Johanna's mouth stretched into a brief smirk before she took her bottom lip with her teeth, Katniss could feel the heat rising in her chest and threatening to spill upward on to her neck.

"We do, you lucky dog. We have the same study hall and I'm taking Astronomy with Wiress. And I've already taken Abernathy's music appreciation class. I'm taking pottery but not the same period as you are." Johanna handed Katniss's schedule back to her, satisfied. "Not a bad schedule, though." The two girls walked down the hallway and back toward the front door. "English Honors, huh? Are you a _brain_, Everdeen?"

Katniss laughed at the old-timey expression Johanna used, shaking her head as they walked back into the open air. "Hardly. I'm good in English."

"You _do well _in English," Johanna corrected, poking the brunette in the shoulder with her pointer finger. Katniss stuck her tongue into her cheek to prevent herself from either scowling or smiling at Johanna's tease.

The pair walked through town, Johanna attempting to point out any areas of note. Their school had a large football field, and directly behind it, a recreation center for the entire town to use. "Mostly it's just used for school-sponsored mixers. Which translates to borefests where the preppy girls where as little clothes and possible and the rest of us take turns throwing up." Johanna sighed and ran her fingers through her tousled hair. "Speaking of, my 'friend' Finnick that you met earlier?" Katniss nodded, trying to be nonchalant about how Johanna had referred to Finnick as her friend. Did that mean he wasn't her boyfriend? "Well Saturday night he's throwing is annual 'School is Back' party at his house on Fourth."

"Sounds cool," Katniss replied noncommittally.

Johanna rolled her eyes in exasperation at the ineptitude of the brunette walking next to her. "I'm inviting you, brainless." Finally the blush that had been hiding beneath Katniss's blouse emerged on to her neck and spread like poison ivy up to her cheeks. Luckily for her they were outside Johanna's job so the darker-haired girl couldn't embarrass her anymore. "It's at eight p.m. on Saturday night. His house is the big bright blue one. It'll be pretty obvious because inevitably some idiots will be out on the lawn doing a kegstand."

"If it's going to be full of idiots, why are you going?"

Johanna shrugged her shoulders. "It's Finnick's thing and I always DJ. And it's like, the only event all year that everyone, regardless of clique attends and has a good time. Finnick is funny that way. The cheerleaders, the jocks, the nerds, the weird kids who like to smell paint, everyone comes. And then on Monday we all go back to hating each other." Johanna smirked. "It's kind of a tradition."

"Wow, way to sell it to me." Johanna scowled at Katniss who gave her a toothy grin in answer. "I'll come. Should I bring anything?"

Johanna squished her lips together, twisting them into a thoughtful expression. "Nah, just be prepared to dance. I'm a pretty fucking awesome DJ."

Katniss quirked one of her eyebrows, meeting Johanna's arrogant glare with a challenging expression. "Don't you dance?"

Johanna backed into the door, setting off the chime above her head as she backpedaled into the store. "Come on Saturday and find out." She tilted her head to the side and winked with a confidence she did not have, letting the door close on Katniss.

* * *

Author's Note: Thank you all for the kind comments; keep 'em coming! I'll be starting up another fanfic soon, a short one based off the of MTV show "Faking It" but Joniss style. So be on the look-out for it! I'll be writing both for as long as I can.

Demian - Is that Castillian Spanish? I speak/read enough Spanish to understand, so no worries. I appreciate you taking the time to read and comment on my fanfic even though it's not in your mother tongue. It doesn't take me much to update. Just a little bit o' time. :)

- T.

Music: "A Better Son/Daughter" by Rilo Kiley.


	3. Chapter 3

"I don't understand why you're taking so long. It's a house party, not a wedding."

Katniss stood in front of her mirror in her bathroom with her curling iron in her hand. Her freshly make-up-applied eyes rolled at the impatience in her cousin's tone. Men would never understand the labor-intensive process that involves looking like you threw yourself together last minute. The painstaking process of getting your hair to look tousled as you woke up that way.

"Just give me a sec," Katniss called from within the bathroom. She wanted an honest appraisal of how she looked and Gale was not going to provide that necessary feedback. "Prim!" Her blonde little sister bounded into the bathroom, stopping short when she took in Katniss's outfit. Katniss fidgeted nervously beneath her sister's scrutinizing gaze. She had chosen a tight pair of dark wash jeans, her smallest but thinnest black high-heels, and a low-cut emerald green tank top. "How do I look?"

"A little bit much for a party at someone's house but definitely pretty." Prim smiled her toothy grin at her older sister and gave her an enthusiastic thumbs up.

"Thanks Little Duck." With her sister's approval Katniss went back into her bedroom to retrieve her earrings and she tried to ignore Gale's disapproving stare from the edge of her bed. She already knew his reaction: he'd think she looked too revealing because he was super over-protective of Katniss. But her outfit tonight was not for him obviously; it was for Johanna. Katniss possessed a deep reserve of the need for the other girl's approval. She couldn't quite place the reason why but smart money would be on the inexplicable warmth she felt in Johanna's presence.

Without waiting for a word from her cousin Katniss led the two of them downstairs and passed her cooking mother on their way out the door. The duo walked leisurely down the long block toward Fourth Street. Katniss hadn't seen much of the interim blocks in between Gale's (now her) street and the main drag. Each street looked very different from the one before it. Eleventh Street had several large apartments on it and two-family homes with more satelittle dishes than Katniss thought was necessary. She saw a group of small kids playing stickball in the street like some sort of 1940's New York City tableau. Seventh Street was backed into a large thicket of tall oaks that stretched the entire length of the block. As they approached Fourth Street Katniss saw a fairly active river that coursed behind the homes there. From her vantage point before they turned down the street Katniss saw that many of the homes had built decks right on the river's edge.

Johanna was right that finding Finnick Odair's house was as easy as spotting a cardinal in a tree. Several Varsity-jacket clad men were sitting outside on the lawn chugging beer straight from the keg spout. A few of them greeted Gale as they walked up the lit cement pathway toward the door. Just as they approached the sky blue door it swung open and revealed Finnick and a red haired girl Katniss didn't recognize.

"You came!" Finnick exclaimed, draping his arm around the redhead next to him. Katniss could smell the alcohol on his breath from where she stood and she didn't hide her grimace. "Johanna is going to be thrilled. Oh!" Finnick stepped backward and held his hands out toward the timid redhead he was previously attached to. "Katniss Everdeen, this is Annie Cresta. My one and only. The sun in my sky. The waves to my shore." Annie blushed deeply, coloring her face a pretty crimson.

"Nice to meet you, Annie," Katniss greeted politely, shaking the shy girl's hand. Inwardly Katniss was relieved to know this handsome man was not Johanna's boyfriend. Once the formalities were over Finnick reattached himself to his girlfriend and let them in. He directed them toward the bar area and explained where the bathrooms were (which was upstairs next to the bedrooms).

Katniss didn't exactly want to mingle but Gale insisted she at least get familiar with some of the kids from alcohol. So instead of finding Johanna like she wanted, Katniss met with a bunch of the kids from Panem High School. Two nearly identical blonde sisters named Cashmere and Glimmer and their large brother Gloss. A small ginger-haired girl with a small face and pointed nose named Meredith but Katniss referred to her as Foxface to Gale who was quietly amused. He introduced her to a friend of his from the lacrosse team, Cato.

Katniss finally lost Gale about an hour (and several "take a shot with me!" drinks) later and she began searching for Johanna. The brunette found her black-haired friend out by Finnick's large pool behind a makeshift DJ booth. It was simply a white plastic folding table with a MacBook, a pile of CDs, and a stereo flanked by two large speakers. Johanna was hunched over the table staring down at her computer, her body lightly bumping up and down to the music. Katniss took the time before she made her presence known to drink in Johanna's appearance. Her bangs fell loosely over her forehead, the rest of her black-and-red hair pulled back into a loose ponytail held up with a clip. Her eyes were their usual heavily lined selves, a faint hint of green at the edge of her onyx eyeshadow. Her pale frame was clad in a Morrissey concert t-shirt that it looked like she had intentionally ripped in several places, including right on her neckline, dipping down between her breasts. The exposed skin was glistening with sweat. A studded belt held up a pair of black jeans that clung to Johanna's slim hips tightly.

Johanna looked beautiful in a guarded, dark, enigmatic way. Her attractiveness was not in the dark clothes she wore or the charcoal make-up she applied like an Amazonian war paint. It was what was beneath that hard shell that drew Katniss in; she glimpsed pieces of Johanna's inner workings in their encounters and it always left her wanting more.

_I know that we are upside down. So hold your tongue and hear me out._

The song changed and Johanna finally looked up from her stare at her computer screen to finally notice Katniss across the yard. When she looked at Katniss, Johanna thought that she was the type of girl composers dreamed of when they wrote beautiful fugues and ballads. The type of girl who breaks the heart of great authors and inspires their masterpieces. She just radiated a kindness that was edged in a mysterious aura of sexuality; it made Johanna uncharacteristically uncomfortable. She wasn't confused by beauty, but Katniss looked like something otherworldly.

The dance song's powerful bass dropped and Johanna busied herself for a moment queuing up another few songs before she downed the rest of her beer and walked around the table toward the brunette.

"You look hot," Johanna commented with a smirk. "And this time I mean it. You clean up well, Everdeen."

Katniss gave her outfit a once-over and graciously took the compliment. "Thanks." Her gray eyes traveled the length of Johanna's body from her roughed up Doc Martens to her windswept bangs. Aggressive confidence began percolating in her veins. "You going to offer me that dance you promised?"

Johanna let out a short, impressed laugh. "I thought you'd forgotten." She extended her hand out in an outlandishly formal gesture. "Care to dance?"

Katniss chuckled and nodded her head. Johanna's smirk widened into an all-out grin as she led Katniss on to the "dance area" of Finnick's backyard, which was simply the pool's large deck. It was already packed with clumsy, inebriated teenagers bumping and grinding to Johanna's infectious mix.

Now that she was actually there on the dance floor facing her, Katniss was glad for the alcohol the others had provided. The way Johanna was gazing into her eyes; they were almost completely black like a large cat's. It shook Katniss from the goosebumps on her arms to the warm coiling sensation in the pit of her stomach.

Johanna's left hand draped over Katniss's neck, her fingernails slowly rotating against her skin. Her right hand grasped Katniss's waist as she curled one finger around the belt loop of her jeans and pulled her closer. Now that their bodies were touching Katniss felt like she finally understood the song that was playing.

_I am a fire, you're gasoline. Come pour yourself all over me._

The brunette suddenly felt like she was on fire and Johanna's existence was the gasoline igniting inside her. Not that she had any practice but Katniss tried to keep up, gripping fistfuls of Johanna's shirt on each of her sides and moving her body in rhythm. She had about an inch or so of height in her favor so Katniss used her leverage on Johanna's sides to spin the other girl around so her butt was flush against Katniss's groin. Katniss couldn't hear her but she felt the rumble in Johanna's chest as she said or growled something. Johanna leaned back and rested her head on Katniss's shoulder; her lips were perilously and achingly close to Katniss's.

Johanna felt like a race car on autopilot. Every engine inside her was pulsating on all cylinders and she was running on pure adrenaline. She hadn't expected Katniss to be so forward but she was more than willing to oblige. Her hands reached behind her and on to Katniss's hips to guide her rhythm. Mostly though, she was just hanging on for dear life. Katniss's hands splayed across Johanna's hips and they came to rest on Johanna's stomach, just above the top of her jeans.

She felt her hair come loose when Katniss's hands vacated their spot on her abdomen. She peered over her shoulder to see Katniss toss her clip on the ground; her fingers snaked into Johanna's hair and shook it free. She felt Katniss lean her face into her hair, the heat of her breath soaking through her hair and coating her skin.

Without a pause the next song came on and the two girls continued their game of cat and mouse. Each of them touching more skin, holding the other closer until they practically moved as one. Neither girl was aware that anyone was looking at them. Not a lot of people were looking at them, but the heat of their eyes bounced of the girls' skin like it was nothing. Johanna turned around to face the brunette once more. She wanted desperately to stare into those lust-filled gray eyes as her own moves made the other girl roll her eyes back in pleasure or let out small gasps.

Two more songs in and Johanna couldn't take it anymore. All points on her skin felt tight and anxious, teeming with desire. When she spoke to Katniss - a hoarse whisper directly in the other girl's ear - her meaning was unmistakeable.

"Do you wanna go upstairs?" Katniss shuddered hard as Johanna's words floated in her buzzing brain until they rested on the meaning. She nodded. There was nothing in that moment that she wanted more than to "go upstairs" with Johanna. She wasn't sure exactly what that meant but it was a promised laced with desire and just a hint of tenderness and Katniss was sold.

The raven-haired girl took her by the hand and began weaving them through the choked crowd. They bumped against other bodies as they maneuvered through the students until they finally got to the foot of the stairs.

Leaning against the wall was a blond boy who Johanna had known all her life. Peeta Mellark - the nicest boy ever to walk the planet. His parents owned the bakery and deli across the street from her general store and she and her mother went there often for lunch. She tried to avoid his eye as she stepped passed him and the girl he was chatting amiably with.

"Katniss?" Johanna's head nearly fell off as it whipped to the side in surprise. "Hey you're Katniss right? Gale Hawthorne's cousin?"

Katniss looked briefly, desperately, toward Johanna who still had her hand in a sweaty death grip. "Yes?"

Peeta smiled widely. "It's Peeta Mellark! I live next door to Gale. I used to play with you guys sometimes when we were kids." He was genuinely flabbergasted to see Katniss at one of Finnick Odair's famous mixers. "Wow what are you doing here?"

Aside from intruding on a very near-intimate moment, Peeta seemed oblivious to the hurried and horny looks on both girls' faces. "I moved here a few days ago," Katniss explained politely. Johanna dropped her hand to avoid awkwardness but continued to stand on the landing.

"No way! You took over the old place of the Grange's. We're practically neighbors!" His exuberance made Johanna want to smash his mouth in. Something about the friendly way he spoke to her irked Johanna. To be fair, Peeta was nice to everyone. But Johanna could sense something else lingering beneath all this feel good nostalgia. Something she did not like or appreciate.

"That's great," Katniss replied in the most passive tone she could make without sounding outright rude. She vaguely remembered this small boy from her childhood. Gale didn't seem to like him that much so they often avoided him. He was always very bright and very friendly in the times they had played together, and she could see now that he had grown to be pretty handsome.

"How have you been? Oh, Delly this is Katniss Everdeen. Katniss, this is Delly Cartwright. She lives down the block from me. From us," he corrected with a good-natured chuckle.

Johanna could practically feel the steam rushing out of her ears. Peeta Mellark had unknowingly stopped her from finally getting to _feel _Katniss. She did not take kindly to people interrupting her conquests. Though truth be told, that's not what it felt like. Looking into Katniss's eyes on the dance floor she felt overwhelmed with the desire to take her, but not in the same sports-like way she usually dealt with girls. This felt more passionate, more real. And now, it was completely gone to smoke. "I'll let you guys catch up," Johanna muttered, annoyed, and pushed through them and made her way back toward the yard.

Fucking Peeta Mellark. The heat between she and Katniss has fizzled almost comically fast when he struck up a conversation. Johanna made herself a strong drink and ingested it quickly, gritting her teeth as the heat of the liquor seared the lining of her throat.

* * *

The night wore on slowly until only about thirty or forty people were still present. Johanna had set up her laptop to mix off a playlist as she dedicated the rest of the night to drinking. She didn't want to be bothered making a perfect mix for the party; nobody was listening to the music anymore anyway.

Katniss found herself practically arrested by Peeta who eagerly soaked up all the information on Katniss's life that she was willing to share. They talked at length about her home before Panem, reminisced a little about their childhood during the summers when they were small. Peeta seemed to remember a remarkable amount of information about Katniss that she had forgotten. It was incredibly sweet but sadly could not distract Katniss from thinking about Johanna and where she was. An hour or so later she hadn't even seen so much as Johanna's shadow

Finding an appropriate moment to excuse herself, Katniss left Peeta in search of the restroom. She ascended the carpeted stairs and began easing her way down the hall. Just as she was getting to the ajar door with the nautical bathroom sign on it, Katniss heard noises coming from another nearby room. Years of hunting with Gale had heightened her senses and she picked up the small noises like she would the movement of a rabbit through fallen leaves.

She leaned a little closer to the door until she was almost startled over the railing as the noise of someone thumping against the wooden entrance echoed in her ears. The sharp gasps of the girl behind the door became louder, the words "baby," and "faster," and "ohmygod" being chanted over and over in a high-pitched whine. Katniss rolled her eyes and twisted her mouth in disgust. Who would have sex in someone else's bedroom?

Granted she would have had things with Johanna escalated like she thought they would. She was ripped from her thoughts as another word spilled from the mysterious girl behind the door's mouth. A name that almost made the alcohol in her stomach rise to her throat. "Oh, Johanna! Don't stop!"

Nauseated, Katniss hurried back down the steps. She brushed passed Peeta and searched for Gale. Once she found him she jerked on his sleeve to get his attention. Her own gray eyes lifted up to his. "Can we go? I'm not feeling well."

Gale narrowed his eyes in concern. Katniss's eyes were welled with tears, the whites dotted in a red tint. He quickly said his goodbye to one of his friends and escorted Katniss out the door. Katniss practically ran down the yard and back toward Twelfth Street. Gale called after her but she kept up her pace. She didn't want to talk to Gale. She didn't want to admit how hurt she was over something that technically shouldn't affect her. It wasn't her business if Johanna was having sex with some other girl. They weren't dating; hell, they had only known each other a few days.

In those short few days Katniss had grown fond of her. Apparently the fondness was one-sided because since Johanna didn't get lucky with her, she was quickly replaced by some idiot girl with a high-pitched voice. The alcohol in her system was not reacting kindly to the additional cocktail of anger, sadness and embarrassment.

She got to her house before Gale could catch up and she quickly made her way up the stairs and into her bedroom. She flung herself across her bed and buried her face in her comforter. The tears that had waited patiently inside her eyelids came pouring out on to the fabric, dyeing the light blue blanket a deep navy. She fell asleep that way, curled in her sadness, until nearly ten in the morning the following day.

* * *

Johanna's head throbbed when she awoke the next day; the residual effect of how heavily she had drank. Normally she paced herself when she drank because her mother was adamant against her imbibing any liquor at all so she had to be careful to avoid hangovers. Today was not going to be one of those days. She hauled herself into her shower and blasted the cold water over herself. Her body shuddered as she threw up on to the basin of the tub, splattering the white porcelain with red and brown.

After thirty solid minutes of a cold shower Johanna begrudgingly dressed herself in sweats and trundled down her stairs toward the kitchen. She couldn't even think about putting food in her mouth but coffee would be extremely helpful. Her mother was out, which was her usual routine on a Sunday morning. Polly took extra work on the weekends when she could, especially on nice days during the summer.

When she opened the cabinet she nearly screamed when she saw that they were out of coffee. The yellow-and-red tin was missing from the cupboard. Johanna almost cried as she stared into the cabinet, hoping the coffee would just materialize like something from episode of Star Trek. Resigned to her fate she pulled on a pair of sneakers and brushed her hair. Looking far from presentable but at least human, she ventured into the ridiculously harsh sunlight of the midday.

Johanna made her way to the Mellark Bakery, eager to get a solid cup of coffee in her system. Hopefully they'd have some extra beans they'd be willing to sell as well. She was greeted by the warm smell of freshly baked bread and the heavenly scent of coffee as she opened the glass door of the bakery. Eyeing the cake display she waited behind two people in line for her coffee.

She approached the counter and frowned when she saw the familiar face of Peeta beaming at her in his apron, a small smear of flour on his cheek. "Good morning, Johanna! Wow you look terrible. Are you sick?"

Johanna rolled her eyes and slapped three dollar bills on the counter. "Coffee. Large. Black. No sugar. Now. Please." Peeta shrugged and turned around, pouring a fresh cup of large coffee into the cup for Johanna. He capped the lid and handed it to her. "Do you have any beans I can buy by the pound? We're all out and the grocery store is closed."

"Yeah, I bet we do. Just one pound?" Johanna nodded and Peeta went to work digging up the unground coffee beans and weighing them out for her. After a few minutes of watching Peeta get the weight perfect Johanna began drinking the piping hot beverage. The caffeine felt amazing as it began working through her stomach. He handed her the small paper bag and began to ring her up. "I can't believe Katniss moved here," he said conversationally as he rung her through.

Johanna looked at the total and peeled more bills from her pocket. "Yeah, small world."

Peeta nodded and smiled. "I know, right? I wanted to talk to her more but toward the end of the night she just stormed out." Johanna blinked in apparent confusion. Peeta shrugged. "She looked pretty upset. I don't know what happened. She went upstairs to use the bathroom and then just came right back down, crazy upset. It was weird."

He handed Johanna her coins which she slid into the tip jar next to the register. Katniss left the party upset? Johanna hadn't even seen Katniss leave the party. She had been a little preoccupied of course, so that was probably the reason why. Johanna took her coffee beans and her drink and left the store without saying goodbye, pushing out the glass door with her shoulder and back into the unbearable sun. Why did it have to be so bright?

Johanna pulled her sunglasses over her face and began back toward her house. School was starting tomorrow and she hadn't at all finished her report on _A Farewell to Arms _so she knew she was in for a day of reading and typing at her computer. That was not how she enjoyed to spend her Sunday afternoons, but she knew her English Honors class was going to be a doozy.

She sat her coffee next to her laptop. She perused her iTunes library for a good twenty minutes until she settled on Richard Wagner's _Lohengrin _and began to type away at her essay. Her mind wandered to Katniss as it usually did in recent days. She wondered why the girl had gotten so upset. She looked like she was having a nice time getting caught up with Peeta so Johanna had excused herself. They had come so close, so frustratingly close to sleeping together. But Johanna was glad they didn't. Something about the way Katniss moved inside her made Johanna want to take her time. Quick and dirty sex was okay for the dumb girls at school, but it wasn't right for Katniss. She deserved something special. She deserved to be loved.

What if she had heard? Johanna thought in horror. What if Katniss had gone upstairs and somehow heard her in the bedroom? Would that have upset her? It's possible, considering how deeply turned on Katniss was when they left the pool deck in favor of the bedrooms upstairs. If that was the case then Johanna had a lot of explaining to do tomorrow morning at school.

It was not a conversation she was looking forward to.

* * *

Author's Note: Muchas gracias for all the continued feedback and new followers to the story. As I said in my other fanfic I'm trying to be as consistent as possible with my intensive work schedule. I actually wrote this entire chapter on the train on my phone, hah.


	4. Chapter 4

The first day of school is inevitably one of the more awkward times in high school. No matter if you're a wide-eyed freshman wandering the halls with a paper schedule clutched in sweaty palms or a laid-back senior sleeping through homeroom, it's awkward. New students, new teachers, new classes, and the merry-go-round of "getting to know" people you had gone to school with since kindergarten.

Johanna had the same routine every morning since first grade. She would wake up, put on music, take a shower, eat, and leave her house. She'd wait on the corner of Fourth Street for Finnick and Annie and the three of them would amble the several blocks toward Panem High School. Their grammar school was only a block or two behind that so the walk was always the same, every day.

It was a blustery summer-turned-fall day; hot in the sun, but brisk in the shadows. Johanna had her three-quarter-length green flannel shirt on over a pair of black skinny jeans. A few bracelets jangled on her wrist but she couldn't hear it over her iPod blasting in her ears. Even though she always walked with Finnick and Annie, she rarely spoke to them out of a combination of not being a morning person and wanting to listen to her music.

_But somewhere in my wicked, miserable past... there must have been some moment of truth._

Johanna hadn't told Finnick about what had happened Saturday night. It didn't seem necessary and she wasn't sure his advice would be any good. Finnick didn't have any experience in love; he'd been in love with the same girl his entire life. However, she harbored a lot of trepidation about confronting Katniss about the events that had transpired. Not only because of her dalliance in the upstairs bedroom but also because of their dancing and Katniss's immediate agreement to hook up. Never had Johanna experienced such an immediate magnetism to someone. And if by some stroke of absolute shit luck Katniss had heard her in the bedroom, she had fucked it.

Johanna settled in her homeroom, keeping her earbuds in her ears as the rest of the class trickled in a few at a time. She had yet to see Katniss but she knew the girl was present because the whispers of the "new girl" that had already infiltrated the hallway within seconds of her entry. People didn't move to Panem very often so Johanna couldn't blame them for being curious but the ass-backward way everyone went about talking about her was bothersome. She wasn't a rare zoo animal, she was just a girl. A very attractive girl, but just a girl.

Just a girl that made Johanna feel like heaven blew in when she was in her presence. Just a girl that had stolen her breath like a thief in the night. Just a girl she had known for less than a week and already missed.

_For here you are, standing there, loving me. Whether or not you should._

Their first class together was pottery. Johanna had switched a bit of her schedule so they wouldn't have the same study hall, but instead the same pottery class. Their teacher droned on for half the class about proper procedures for molding clay or something to that effect. Johanna hadn't been paying attention because she was actively trying _not _to stare at Katniss and inevitably ended up staring at Katniss. She looked particularly pretty today in a light cardigan with the sleeves rolled up and a flower-print skirt that revealed tanned calves that Johanna found herself lingering on.

Katniss thought she had been doing an excellent job of pretending not to notice a lot of things on her first day. She pretended not to notice the gawks and stares as she fumbled with her locker's combination lock or walked the hallway. She pretended not to notice the way Peeta stared at her when he walked by with his friend Delly. She pretended not to notice that she had found Johanna several times in the hall before their class together. She pretended not to notice how Johanna's green shirt had brought out the hazel flecks in her eyes.

And now she was sitting in the art room pretending not to notice Johanna's heated gaze on her. Over and over in her mind she replayed that night, like a kid at a carnival riding a rollercoaster all day. The anticipation of getting ready, the warmth of the alcohol, the thrill of seeing Johanna, the extempore desire that had crept up inside her as their bodies touched, the frustrating stall as Peeta monopolized her time and she lost Johanna's attention, and the dreadful fall to reality when she heard someone else breathlessly call Johanna's name.

The class broke off into partners and Johanna knew what she had to do. She crossed the classroom as casually as possible until she was in front of Katniss, who was sitting on a stool in front of one of the clay spinners. "Hey stranger." Katniss looked up at the dark-haired girl, mentally cursing herself for not being able to stop the smile that burst on to her face when Johanna got close. "Wanna be partners?"

Did she want to be partners? No, she wanted to find out who was in that room with her, possibly maim that girl, then shove Johanna in a closet and kiss her until she could barely stand. Unfortunately none of those things were going to happen so Katniss nodded in agreement and Johanna pulled up another stool. Katniss watched as Johanna began pressing the pedal to spin the machine. "Have you done this before?"

Johanna nodded and flashed a quick smile. Katniss felt her heart beat a little faster and she wanted to punch herself in the chest for it. "Yeah. My mom is really crafty so she's taken me to some pottery things. One time we went on this cabin retreat over the summer that my mom had no idea was full of lesbians. Like a league of middle-aged lesbians trying to rekindle their bed death marriages via pottery classes." Johanna smiled at Katniss. "If my mom was gay or I was into MILFs we would have made out like bandits that weekend."

Katniss chuckled softly as Johanna threw the clay in the center of the plate. She slid off her bracelets and tucked them in her pocket. She flicked water on it and placed her hands around the gray ball. The small gray putty began to take shape as bits of it flaked on to Johanna's hands. Katniss unfortunately found herself mesmerized by the small, firm movements of Johanna's fingers around the clay. Of course she was good with her hands. Katniss nearly scoffed out loud at the thought. Of course she couldn't sit through this one class without wanting the other girl again.

Johanna couldn't help the smirk that picked up one corner of her mouth as she watched Katniss watch her out of her peripheral vision. Maybe she hadn't fucked up as much as she thought. She stopped pushing the pedal and removed her hands, revealing a small but relatively even circular bowl. "You try." Katniss looked very wary of the machine in front of them and the brown-eyed girl rolled her eyes. "It's okay to get your hands dirty, princess. I'll control the speed, you just have to move your hands."

They paused for a moment to reflect on the double-entendre of Johanna's comment. Katniss blushed and Johanna took her tongue between her teeth and grinned. The brunette got her hands wet and placed them around the bowl. Johanna slowly started the spinner as Katniss tried to work the clay into a wider bowl. It began to warp as Johanna watched over her carefully. "No brainless, it's not a bow and arrow, okay? You've got to be gentle, but firm."

Exasperated and not wanting their bowl to look like a Chinese take-out container, Johanna placed her hands over Katniss's. Her slightly slimy fingers glided over Katniss's as she guided her through the motions of making a bowl. Slowly the material began to look smoother under Johanna's watchful touch. Katniss's own eyes were firmly glued to Johanna's face, where she could see the girl biting her lip in pure concentration.

When Johanna's gaze flickered over to Katniss she felt the immediate heat between them like the swung open door of an oven. Katniss's lips had no gloss or lipstick on them. They were an untainted pale pink, the bottom slightly fuller than the top. It was only ten a.m. and Johanna was already worked into a hormonal frenzy. There was beginning to be too much tensity between them and Johanna felt she had to do something, say something to break it. "This moment would be perfect if 'Unchained Melody' was playing, right?" Johanna joked lightly, removing her hands from Katniss's.

Katniss frowned at the loss of contact before looking up at Johanna in puzzlement. "What?"

"Unchained Melody? The movie Ghost?" Katniss's blank expression made Johanna scoff. "You've never seen the movie Ghost? Hunky Patrick Swayze and weird hair-cut Demi Moore?" Katniss shook her head. "Oh my God you're missing out. What an eighties phenomena! Demi Moore is sitting at a pottery thing like this and the Righteous Brothers song 'Unchained Melody' comes on. Suddenly Swayze's ghost comes up behind her, wraps his arms around hers and guides them as they make some weird thing. It's hilarious but back then it was erotic."

Katniss snickered, ignoring the clay her hands were around until she saw Johanna's wide-eyed stare down at it. She had stopped moving the pedal and Katniss's hand had made a big indent in one side of their bowl. "Aw come on. I ruined it." Katniss pouted and withdrew her hands from the clay and placed them on the side of the basin.

"Not necessarily." Johanna pressed her fingers around the edges of the clay and somehow curved the bowl into a somewhat symmetrical heart. "Perfect. Now it's a little heart-shaped bowl that will fill nothing and serve no purpose." Their teacher passed by and collected their heart to place in the large kiln in the side of the room. The girls moved to the sink to wash off the clay residue, attempting to sneak glances at each other without being noticed.

The bell rang above their heads obtrusively and both girls collected their backpacks and exited the room in tandem. Johanna remembered Katniss's next class as her Music Appreciation with Mr. Abernathy, but she didn't want to seem like a total creep. Instead she conversationally asked, "So what's next for you?"

"Music Appreciation with Abernathy I think," Katniss replied, confirming Johanna's internal hypothesis. Johanna led the brunette down into a different wing of the school where the music room was. Johanna finally got to see firsthand the bizarre looks that Katniss was receiving. "You know what makes me feel totally normal?"

"Being stared at?"

"Bingo." Johanna stood outside the door, giving a wave for the blonde teacher inside. She liked Mr. Abernathy, even though he was kind of cantankerous most of the time. He had a deep knowledge of music and could play practically any instrument put in front of him with near prodigious skill. He was also the only person in the entire school who was aware that Johanna could sing, even Finnick didn't know, and it was a secret that he guarded safely and she appreciated his discretion. "Any advice before I go in?"

Johanna smiled. "Don't be late. Don't disparage other people's taste, he hates that. And keep your mind and ears open. He's gonna play a lot of weird shit but he knows his stuff." Johanna placed her hand on Katniss's shoulder and gave her a wink. "Have fun, Everdeen."

* * *

Johanna's study hall was Katniss's gym class now so she ditched the library in favor of the large gymnasium. The mixed grade class was well underway when she arrived, in the middle of a dodgeball game. Johanna waved to the gym instructor Mrs. York, and sat herself on the bleachers to the side of the room. York made her way around to Johanna was she kept a watchful eye on the game. "What are you doing here, Mason?"

"Enjoying the view," Johanna murmured under her breath, her eyes trained on Katniss, who had yet to see her. Her gym t-shirt was just a bit too small for her, hugging her sides and chest. And those shorts... Johanna thought she was going to break into a sweat just looking at her legs. She tore her attention away and focused on the teacher. "Just minding my business. I have study hall and the library is a bore."

York sighed and placed her clipboard-holding hand on her hip. "Fine, you can stay. But make yourself useful and go grab some of the pinnies from the locker room." Johanna rolled her eyes but availed herself anyway and scurried off toward the locker room. She rummaged around in the closet for the smelly pile of blue and red pinnies in the bin. She placed them in a large sack and made her way out back into the gym. Katniss was still very focused on her dodgeball game and had yet still to notice Johanna's presence.

It was Katniss on one side with only one other girl against at least five people on the other side. Johanna removed one of the blue pinnies and lined up behind Cashmere on the opposite team, snapping the pinny directly on the other girl's behind.

Cashmere shrieked and turned around, rubbing her buttcheeks as she stared down Johanna. "Ow! Johanna!" she squealed angrily.

Katniss's attention was piqued but not just because of the name. The way she said it. Her voice. Katniss was positive she had heard that high-pitched squeal before. Muffled through a doorway. Her eyes locked with Johanna's from across the gym floor as anger began to rise inside her chest like a swelling wave. The look of utter panic in Johanna's eyes confirmed what Katniss had already thought. This was the girl from behind the door. Cashmere, the beautiful blonde Senior who had just two days ago done shots with Katniss had also apparently been pinned against a door being fucked by Johanna.

A ball was thrown in Katniss's direction but she caught it to the dismay of the thrower. She took a few quick steps forward and launched the ball at Cashmere, who had just turned around. The ball smacked Cashmere directly in the chest, just above her breasts, hard enough to knock her backward into the padded wall behind her. "Ow what the fuck, new girl? What the fuck is your problem?"

Katniss narrowed her gray eyes dangerously. "Maybe pay more attention next time." She gave Cashmere a false smile and brought her attention back to the game. "And my name is Katniss." She was worked into a frenzy now, determined to take out her anger on the other poor fools on the opposite team. With a ferocious tenacity too extreme for gym class dodgeball, Katniss methodically picked each one of them off. When they were all cleared off the gym floor Katniss stood there, alone, panting in the middle of the gym.

"Great job, Everdeen!" Mrs. York called from across the gym, clapping her hand against her clipboard. "Well done. Okay everyone go change, class is over in about ten minutes." The other students cleared the gym floor quickly, filing into the locker rooms on each side of the room. Johanna stood near the door to the girls' locker room, stepping in front of it before Katniss could go in.

"Hey, um, I don't want you to think I'm a dick."

Katniss tilted her head to the side in a phony questioning expression. "And why would I think that? Because you've been flirting with me since the second I got here and at a party _you _invited me to, you had sex with some other girl?" Anger had somehow metamorphosed into confidence and Katniss was practically dripping with it.

Johanna's throat moved as she swallowed down saliva. Last time she was measured, she stood at around five feet, five inches. Today, though, anyone with a ruler could measure her and she'd be around two inches tall. "That's mostly it, yeah."

Katniss bristled and shrugged her shoulders. "You can do whatever you want, Johanna. But I don't let anyone make me feel small." Johanna's eyes dropped to the floor in apparent shame. "I thought you were different."

Johanna's eyes snapped back up to Katniss's hurt gaze. When did Katniss get so tall? "I _am_ different. Look, um, will you at least let me get you a coffee after school and explain myself? Please?"

Katniss rolled her eyes and looked off to the side. She didn't want Johanna to see the immediate forgiveness in her eyes. The innocent, desperate way Johanna was looking at her had struck her in the heart like an ax to the chest. In such short time this girl had crawled beneath Katniss's skin and alighted her nerves and fumbled her good sense. "Fine," Katniss acquiesced, still not looking at Johanna. "Where should I meet you?"

Johanna tried hard to suppress the look of unabashed hope on her face when Katniss agreed to talk to her. "Oh, um, well just come to the store. I'll make you the best coffee you've ever had and we can talk in my mom's workshop in the back." Katniss nodded and soundlessly walked away from Johanna and into the noisy locker room.

* * *

As Katniss walked down the Boulevard toward the general store, she tried to reason with herself. She hadn't ever had feelings for another girl before. In fact, she couldn't remember having feelings for anyone before. The age when teenagers begin evolving their sexual taste Katniss had just lost her father. It stunted her development like a nuclear bomb. Having romantic feelings for anyone seemed trivial and frivolous, even. Life was so precious but also so damned fleeting that what was the purpose? Even two people as in love as her parents could be severed at any time by the unpredictable and needlessly cruel hand of fate.

Many had tried to tell Katniss that it was God's intervention. That there was always a reason behind senseless crimes and accidents and diseases. "God works in mysterious ways" many had told her. But Katniss's religious convictions were dashed the moment that drunk driver had smashed into her father's car. No faith or grace or magical mystery machine in the sky was going to tell her that her father's death was necessary or logical. It was hard and cruel and unfair. Little kids dying of cancer, brides being murdered on their wedding day, people killing other people because of their sexual orientation or skin color or religion - none of that was explainable to Katniss.

So thinking along those lines Katniss became an atheistic fatalist. There was no room in that tiny shell for notions of romance or teenage crushes. Instead there was the monotony of schoolwork in a plodding, beige reel of life since that day. A few bright spots shone in her life - Primrose's growing up, hunting with Gale during the summer, participating in her archery tournaments - but the only lasting sunlight she had felt was within her attraction to Johanna.

She didn't really care that she might be gay or bisexual. The finality and inevitability of death made worrying about your sexual orientation seem silly. Who cares what other people thought? As Katniss had learned, other people shared their opinion whether you wanted it or not. It wasn't bravery or courage, either. It was simple pragmatism. If you could find someone to make you happy, why waste time worrying what set of genitalia they had? Life was too short. She had never thought of it that way before meeting Johanna.

That was why, partly at least, she had reacted so strongly to Johanna having sex with someone else. For whatever reason she had invested so much of her potential happiness in Johanna in a short time and she saw it all dashed. She stepped inside the shop, the familiar bell ringing above her head. Music played softly inside the wood-paneled store, not nearly as loudly as when Katniss had encountered Johanna the first time.

_Last night I had a dream we were inseparably entwined. Like a piece of rope made out of two pieces of vine._

A dark-haired woman behind the counter appeared before Katniss. She looked remarkably like Johanna except Johanna's deep brown eyes were replaced with a soft hazel color and there were no red streaks in her hair. Johanna's typical darkness that shrouded her was not present, either. This woman exuded a friendly disposition that seemed infectious.

"Hello! Can I help you?" the woman greeted cheerfully, brushing her hands on her jeans. She was in remarkably good shape for a woman her age, Katniss noticed. A little round in the middle from age but otherwise she had strong, athletic limbs and a slim face.

"I'm looking for Jo? I was supposed to meet her here after school," Katniss explained timidly. The woman leaned on the counter in front of her, eyeing Katniss up and down.

"Oh. You must be Katniss." A weird silence dropped between them as the woman seemed to be appraising Katniss like she was a car on a showroom floor. A smile stretched on the woman's face and she extended her hand over the counter. "I'm Polly, Johanna's mother. Johanna's in the back there."

Katniss shook the woman's hand which was like a vice grip. She hid a wince as the woman let her hand go and nodded toward the back of the store. "Thank you. It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Mason."

Polly laughed, a hearty laugh unlike Johanna's. "Oh please. Call me Polly." Katniss nodded politely and went deeper into the store in search of the back room. She passed the bizarre things the Masons had for sale: plungers, plastic pool toys, cordless home phones, stained glass windchimes.

_So now I look at love like being stabbed in the heart. You torture each other from day to day and then one day you part._

Johanna was sat atop a wooden workman's bench, her feet crossed Indian-style beneath her knees. Two steaming cups of coffee were in front of her, filling the room with the earthy and sweet scent. Katniss entered the room and slowly took the whole room in. It was clearly Polly's workshop; tools were everywhere, hung with methodic care by size and type along the pegs on the walls. Unfinished pieces of furniture and other knick-knacks were strewn about the other workbenches that lined the room. The underlying scent of varnish and sawdust reminded Katniss of Johanna herself. Rustic, sweet, with just a hint of heady toxicity.

Katniss hopped up on the table across from Johanna, mirroring her sitting position and placing her hands on either side of her mug of coffee. She took a sip from the dark liquid and smiled as it went down her throat. It was a little sweeter than she normally took her coffee, but it was delicious. "Thanks for meeting me here," Johanna said, not looking up from her cup of coffee. "I'm sorry that I'm kind of a fuck up."

Katniss let out a short laugh as she took another sip of Johanna's amazing coffee. Somewhere in her mind, she was traveling to a faraway place. A place where she woke up with Johanna and the smell of this coffee. Smelling the sharp scent of newsprint as she leafed through the Sunday paper, Johanna across from her plucking leisurely at a guitar. They'd share a loving look over the steam of their coffees. Johanna, in her typical impatience, would put her instrument down and sit crossways on Katniss's lap and kiss her, sharing the taste of coffee and cherry pastries on her tongue.

The reverie disappeared into the air like the wisps of sawdust around them as Katniss focused back on Johanna. "I don't think you're a fuck up."

Johanna quirked the corner of her mouth into a lopsided smile. "You don't know me very well yet." The raven-haired girl let out a very long sigh and ran her fingers through her bangs and the rest of her hair, mussing it up into a messy pile. "I don't like to beat around the bush so I'll just come out with it." Johanna pressed her lips together tightly. "I got jealous and stupid when you talked to Peeta. I got like fourth-wheeled and didn't know what to do. So I got very, very drunk."

"I was drunk too."

Johanna inclined her head to the left. "Yeah not as drunk as I was. And when I'm drunk I make really, truly awful decisions. Like Cashmere." Katniss tensed, her hands still wrapped around her mug. The image of Johanna giving that blonde bimbo pleasure made Katniss want to set the older girl on fire. She imagined putting her on a medieval breaking wheel and shooting arrows into her. That probably wasn't normal. "She and I have a little history and I just kind of lost my head."

"I didn't know Cashmere was gay. She doesn't ...seem the type? If that's appropriate?"

Johanna let out a very severe laugh and shook her pile of black hair. "Cashmere's not gay. She's a certified fucking pin-straight, daughter-of-Republicans, trust fund baby. I'm the only girl she's ever slept with. It started out as a drunk hook-up when I was a freshman and she was a sophomore at some stupid party. Then it became this regular thing, us getting wasted and having sex. We've been doing it off and on since that night. Whenever one of us gets the itch, we just go for it. We don't even like each other."

"Sounds convenient," Katniss replied derisively, glaring down into her cup of coffee. She sipped the liquid again, trying to process that information. These two very disparate people using each other for something that Katniss saw as an act of love, not some vulgar way to pass the time in a small town.

Johanna sighed. "It is, I guess. I stopped asking her to meet me a while ago, now she just calls me. But Saturday night, that was all on me." Johanna bit the inside of her cheek and looked over at Katniss. "I really like you. I've never really liked anyone before so I don't exactly know how to handle myself. Clearly my decision-making skills need some work because getting drunk was not exactly my finest moment. But two things I don't do well are ...romantic feelings and jealousy. Both of them turn me into a raging idiot evidently."

Katniss's mind had stuck on Johanna's confession. She _really liked_ her. What did that mean? She knew Johanna "really liked" her by the way she had held her and danced with her. Katniss thought maybe Johanna would chalk that all up to inebriated lust. But the strange undercurrent of tenderness Katniss saw in Johanna's eyes that night had indicated that mustn't be true.

"In any case I apologize. Deeply. I want to have a fresh start with you, if you'll let me. I do make good coffee, right?"

Katniss laughed and nodded her head at the other girl. She decided that Johanna was utterly adorable when she was embarrassed. It was such a far cry from her usual facade of indifference and confidence and wholly endearing. "Your one redeeming quality so far. Other than good taste in music. Revolver is amazing."

Katniss adored the way Johanna's eyes lit up when she made her comment about the record. Johanna was so genuinely pleased that Katniss liked her recommendation and that they were on a topic she was much more comfortable with. "I'm so glad you liked it. It's kind of a litmus test to see if we could even be acquaintances. I can't even begin to fathom a friendship with someone who can't appreciate the underrated Beatles tunes."

"Oh is that right? Was that your test? How charming," Katniss teased tightly, pinching Johanna's calf through her jeans. "I just figured that was your socially awkward way of flirting."

Johanna's cheeks reddened as she ran her tongue along her lips. "Not fair. I'm not a bad flirt. Only with you," she murmured that last sentence, darting her eyes to the dust-covered cement floor beneath them.

Katniss couldn't help the teasing smile on her lips. "Why's that? 'Cos you _really like _me?"

Johanna's eyes flared. "You're treading on thin ice now, Everdeen."

But Katniss didn't back down. Not when she finally had Johanna against the ropes. Ever since they met Katniss felt like she was always swinging second. But not today. Today Johanna was trying to impress _her_. Stripped of her layer of bullet-proof confidence she had to fend for herself against Katniss's teasing. "Oh am I? And what do you plan on doing about that, _Mason_?"

As Katniss raised her mug to her lips Johanna gently took it from her, placing it to their right. She moved her own mug to the right as well. She leaned forward on her knees, coating her jeans in the debris on the table. She rested her palms directly in front of Katniss's knees, her face just an inch from Katniss's. She could smell, almost taste, the sweet coffee on Katniss's breath. Being so near her was like sitting on the edge of the ocean, letting the strong undercurrent pull at your legs.

Her lips met Katniss's so tentatively they barely touched. The lightest of touches, like a drop of dew on a flower petal sent an absolute pure electric shock through Johanna's body. Never in all her kisses had her body reacted so strongly to something so gentle. She pressed on further, flicking her tongue out quickly to taste the residual coffee on Katniss's bottom lip. Katniss's hand wrapped around the back of Johanna's neck, deepening their kiss with an unexpected intensity that Katniss was unaware she held in reserve for such occasions.

There had never been such an occasion before. This was her first kiss ever. She wasn't one of those girls that dreamed about their first kiss, like Anne Hathaway in The Princess Diaries. If she had, she never would have guessed that kissing another girl in a pulpy-smelling workshop on top of a table would be how it wold go. Or that it would make her entire body buzz and her breath shaky.

They pulled away from their kiss slowly, each of them with their eyes closed. Katniss opened her eyes first, resisting the urge to kiss Johanna again since her eyes were closed and she couldn't stop her. The amount of pure necessity she felt inside Johanna's kiss was frightening. The sensation had possessed her body and soul, tightening her chest and setting her nerves ablaze.

Johanna blinked very slowly, incapable of moving her eyes from the mouth of the girl across from her. Human beings are funny in that way. Big emotions like sadness and anger are felt everywhere - you feel it in your brain, in the swelling of your throat, in the restriction of your chest, the adrenaline or fatigue in your muscles. But passion... passion consumed your very soul. It wasn't just a physical tingling, it was an emotional mouse trap that caught your every thought.

Johanna felt her entire world begin to get colored by Katniss. Her bed would now feel empty without Katniss, her wardrobe would be full of things Katniss liked or didn't, her music would now be a library for her to enchant Katniss with, her thoughts would be divided between what she would tell Katniss and what she would keep to herself. Plans for the future would now have to be widened and envelope Katniss within them. Because in that kiss she felt her entire life get swallowed whole.

Funny how one moment can change your entire life. How funny and how absolutely terrifying. Both girls sat there, Johanna back on her heels, Katniss still cross-legged, simultaneously feeling petrified and exalted. If they didn't go slowly, Johanna was sure they would both drown.

* * *

Author's Note: Thank you all muchly for the feedback! Look how consistent I've been in updating! I'll be using this as a mulligan when I inevitably forget to update for a bit.

Also sorry about that pottery thing. I seriously had to watch a youtube video on how you make clay bowls because I have no fucking clue. So I apologize if the words and the actions are not exactly right but like what is that spinning wheel thing even called?!

Music: "Something Good" from The Sound of Music and "2 Atoms in a Molecule" by Noah and the Whale. And the previous chapter was "Stay the Night" by Zedd featuring Hayley Williams.


	5. Chapter 5

_Your lips when we speak are the valleys and peaks of a mountain range on fire._

Johanna hummed quietly to herself as she leaned against a locker, ear buds securely inside her ears to block out the droning din of her classmates. Her next class was English and it was not one of her favorites. While she appreciated objectively the necessity for the class, she hated nearly everyone in it. Neither Finnick, Annie nor Katniss were in the class. Not even Smiley Peeta Mellark. Instead it was an insufferable bunch of elitist kids from First and Second Street: Cashmere's younger sister Glimmer, Enobaria, and a host of other equally dull and grating members of Panem High School.

For the time being she was waiting for Katniss to leave the room so they could speak briefly before she had to get to her next class. "Excuse me, you're standing in front of my locker." Glimmer crossed her arms and stood in front of Johanna, shooting daggers at the dark-haired girl. The Shins were playing too loudly in Johanna's ears for her to hear her but by her body language and cross stare, she assumed there was an issue.

_'Cos you know as soon as breathe we scrutinize._

Yanking one of the ear buds out she slowly looked up to lock eyes with the petite blonde. Glimmer was just as vapid as Cashmere, but she was even more unbearable because at least Cashmere was good for a roll in the hay every once in a while. Glimmer was only good for wasting precious oxygen and consuming fossil fuels. "Is there a problem, Shiny?"

Glimmer pinched her features in anger at Johanna's nickname for her. "Are you deaf as well as a loser?" Glimmer spread her lips in a smug grin as a few of her craw chuckled at her "joke." "I said you're in front of my locker. Move."

Johanna glanced behind her. There was no way it was Glimmer's locker because the juniors had their section in a different part of the school. "I don't see your name on it."

Glimmer inclined her head and pursed her glittery lips. Another thing on the long list of things Johanna adored about Katniss was how minimal her make-up was. The girls at PHS typically wore an atrocious amount of the stuff; caking it on their faces like they were always about to grace a vaudeville stage. Katniss could show up with grimy smudges on her face and still look one hundred times more attractive than these girls.

"It certainly doesn't say 'Dyke Parking' so fucking take your K.D. Lang music and get the fuck off my locker." Another long round of snickers came from behind Glimmer, who was smugly staring at Johanna with her light green eyes.

Johanna inwardly cringed. She hated the word 'dyke.' It was highly offensive and corrosive to her spirit. Of course the moment you let someone use it against you as a weapon, the more it hurt. Johanna's theory was that if she didn't acknowledge the pain then it didn't exist. This theory, when tested, worked about zero percent of the time. Instead Johanna moved her face into the closest she could to indifference. As her mouth opened to speak Katniss suddenly appeared next to Johanna.

"Is there a problem?"

Glimmer's eyes moved slowly from Johanna to Katniss, eyeing the new girl up and down before settling her eyes on her face. "Did anyone invite you to this conversation, Everdeen?"

Katniss smiled. "I should have known I'd need an invitation. I mean there usually _is_ a charge to go inside the freak show tent, right?" Glimmer looked appalled as Katniss stood next to Johanna confidently, a mild smile masking a deadly dose of anger.

The blonde looked over at Johanna. "Is this your new girlfriend, Jo? Nobody who actually _knows _you would want to date you so you had to jump on the first thing with two legs and a vagina that crawled into Panem, hm?"

Katniss saw Johanna's entire body go taut with what she mistook for anger. However, she saw a glimpse of something she had never seen in her: fear. Somehow this idiot blonde was able to weasel her way underneath Johanna's skin like a bacterial infection. "She's not my girlfriend," Johanna denied hotly. "She's just my friend and back the fuck off, okay?" The small break in her voice undermined the authority she was trying to convey.

Glimmer tossed her long blonde hair back and laughed. "I hope for new girl's sake she isn't your girlfriend. Wouldn't want to start a new school already on the lowest rung of the ladder." Glimmer flicked her wrist and her clique followed her down the hallway. Johanna let out a breath she wasn't aware she was holding and leaned her back against her locker.

"What the fuck was that about?" Katniss asked as she looked down the hallway after Glimmer. She remembered stupid, vain girls like that from her old school. Katniss had no time for them then and certainly didn't have time for them now. Especially if they were going to try and bully her girlfriend. Or, at least she thought Johanna was her girlfriend. They had kissed three weeks earlier and spent almost every day after school together since. This behavior seemed to speak against that.

"I'm sorry," Johanna apologized with a downcast gaze. "They're assholes."

"I can see that. I'm more wondering why you told them we weren't dating. I have a few memories of your lips that say otherwise." The upturned corner of her mouth indicated a joke but her tone was as flat as the horizon. "Are you embarrassed?"

Johanna's mouth gaped. "Embarrassed? Hardly. You're the prettiest girl in this school." Katniss darted her eyes to the side self-consciously. "But they're not wrong. Associating with me kind of leaves you in the muck with the rest of us."

"'Associating with you?' What are you, some kind of mafia criminal?" Katniss chuckled and went to tuck hair behind Johanna's ear but the shorter girl ducked out of her way. "Jo, please. I'm not ashamed of our relationship. Those moron girls aren't going to intimidate me."

Johanna scowled deeply. "You don't get it, Katniss. They can make your life a living hell." Her tone lowered to a whisper. "If they knew we were dating they'd start taking out their frustrations on you instead of me. I don't want that."

Katniss's eyebrow lifted nearly to her hairline. "And who says you make the decisions for me? For us?"

Johanna sigh. "This is _high school_, Katniss. We have to spend the next two years here. Why make it harder than it has to be? I'm used to their inane teasing anyway. They can't hurt me. I'm not like the rest of you."

Katniss visibly bristled. "Okay, so you just get to decide that we're going to stay in the closet for the remainder of high school? I don't even get a vote? What the hell is this, 1910?"

Johanna chucked and shifted her weight uncomfortably from foot to foot. She had hoped that her position as Panem's Only Lesbian and apparent Popular Girl Punching Bag would not have reared its ugly head so soon. Unfortunately it had so she was stuck trying to do whatever she could to protect Katniss from the barbs of these vicious girls and boys. "You just got here, all right? You don't understand how this works."

Gray eyes narrowed in bewilderment. Where had this shrunken Johanna come from? Where was the confident, sexy Johanna she met that day in the shop and danced with at the party? Where was her hot girlfriend who found nooks and crannies in the library to press Katniss up against and kiss her until she could barely stand?

What had these horrible girls done to her to make her so afraid? "Fine," Katniss breathed. She watched as Johanna relaxed her muscles and a small smile broadened across her face. "But for the record I am not happy about this." She squeezed Johanna's hand in lieu of kissing her and took off down the hallway toward her next class.

Johanna watched her go with wide, sad eyes. She wished she could be more open with Katniss at school since the bulk of their time was spent there. But it wouldn't be worth the constant bullying and Johanna knew the moment someone crossed Katniss that she would get expelled. Because that person would be hanged from the nearest flagpole by their entrails of they spoke an unkind word to her.

It was for everyone's protection, really.

* * *

_The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out. You've left me in the dark._

Johanna's tiny portable radio softly pushed the music through its tiny speakers and out into the front room of the Everdeen home. For the first hour or so that Johanna was inside the old piano attempting to tune it, that was the only noise. Until Prim took a sudden interest in her and never left.

"Does this usually take three hours?"

"How long have you been doing this for?"

"What's that noise?"

"Is it dusty in there?"

Johanna closed her eyes and let out a long, deliberate breath. Tuning a piano is a delicate, sensitive operation that requires a lot of tedious concentration. Unfortunately the last three hours Johanna had been surrounded by Primrose Everdeen like bees around a hive. A constant, buzzing presence flying around her head as she sat on the hardwood floor of Katniss's front room trying to tune their old piano.

"Prim, please, could you leave Johanna alone for two seconds? She can't tune it right if you're in the way. Otherwise the entire piano will sound like your chirpy bird voice, Little Duck." Katniss ushered a disappointed Primrose out of their room and up their stairs. Once the blonde girl was safely but begrudgingly in her room Katniss returned to Johanna.

She placed herself on the piano bench next to where Johanna was cross-legged beneath the piano keys. Her outfit choice had been purposeful: a flower-print dress that barely covered her knees and a pair of small platform red heels that matched the roses on her skirt. Even though Johanna's attention was on the small hammers inside the piano, just like in class, or the hallway, or the back of her mother's workshop; eventually her attention would return to Katniss's legs.

Johanna leaned back onto her palms next to the piano bench, her eyes traveling from the bottom of Katniss's heel, up the smooth tan surface of her legs, to the hem of her skirt, up to her smug gray eyes. The dark-haired girl did nothing to hide the lust in her brown eyes. "You know very well by now that I cannot concentrate when you parade your...your..."

_No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight. In the shadow of your heart._

"My what?" Katniss's light voice cut into Johanna's sentence. She very slowly crossed and uncrossed her legs with her unwavering gaze focused on the girl sitting on her floor. She had invited Johanna over under the guise of tuning their old piano because her mother was supposed to take Prim out and they could've been alone. Unfortunately Prim was too tickled by Johanna's visit to be persuaded to leave.

Johanna's jaw flexed. "Katniss," she warned. It was late November and Katniss's dress was inappropriate for the brisk fall weather. The moment Johanna had stepped in the doorway and saw Katniss done up like Anne Gwynne with her hair pulled back and up into an intricate bun and her dress tied around her neck she had almost dropped her tools on the ground in surprise. Katniss knew the effect she had over Johanna and had been exploiting it nearly every day since their kiss. Johanna was trying to practice restraint; every time she slept with a girl it fizzled too quickly and she was left grasping at smoke. She spent the wick of the relationship in one night and left nothing to light up any other day. But Katniss was different. Johanna didn't want to use up their passion in some short night. She wanted it to burn slowly.

However Katniss, with her short skirts and her persistent kisses was dissolving her resolve. And it was absolutely designed toward undoing Johanna. They had been a couple for over two months and they had barely gone beyond some addictive but generally chaste make-out sessions. Typical teenaged fare of sneaking into broom closets at school or late nights in the back of Johanna's old car.

_Then I heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness too. So I stayed in the darkness with you._

"You know what," Johanna chastised. The late afternoon sun sleepily cast into the room, illuminating the golden flecks in Katniss's hair. She slapped her hands together in a "job done" manner and pushed herself into a standing position. Her tools clanked noisily as she cleared the small clutter she had made.

"You're done?" Surprise and disappointment was evident Katniss's tone as she stood from the piano bench. Johanna switched the radio off and placed it in her tool box with the rest of her miscellany.

Johanna smiled, amused. "Yes only a short three hours later," she replied with an eye roll. The shorter girl sat on the bench, gingerly pressing the pedals beneath the piano. Slowly her fingers traced over the ivory keys like the wandering hands of a new lover. She pressed down in the keys experimentally to test our their sound. The noise was wonderful; the melodic echo of the hammers in the old wooden piano gave her goosebumps with its antique clarity. Pianos were much like people in that their every part felt different from one another even though their insides were generally the same. They all responded to a different type of touch.

Without much thought she began teasing out an old tune she knew by heart. Katniss sat on the bench next to her watching Johanna's fingers glide effortlessly across the keys. Between pottery class and her musical talent, Katniss was at a point somewhere beyond curiosity as to how Johanna's fingers felt all over her skin. Johanna hummed the melody as she accompanied herself, her eyes closed delicately like she was taking an afternoon nap.

___I used to be color-blind. But I met you and now I find there's green in the grass. There's gold in the moon. There's blue in the skies._  


The front door clicked open slowly and Katniss whirled around on the bench so her back was facing the piano. She watched her mother come in and she placed her fingers on her lips to silence her. Mrs. Everdeen stood perplexed in the doorway, white plastic bags straining from her wrists. She exaggeratedly tip-toed into the kitchen to place the bags down, eager to not disturb the beautiful music filling her home. No one had played that old piano since her husband had died. It was old and went out of tune almost immediately after his death as if it knew the music in their home had perished with him.

_Believe me it's really true 'til I met you I never knew. A setting sun could paint such beautiful skies._

The blonde-haired woman smiled from the foyer and watched Johanna at the piano. She began to sing softly to the familiar tune. Johanna was breathing life into the old piece of junk just a she had breathed life into her daughter. The dazed delusion of teenage love seemed to clear the fog from Katniss in only a few weeks. She put no stock in their relationship; young love is passionate but notoriously fickle. But she whole-heartedly invested in the temporary solace Johanna provided Katniss. Happiness, however brief, is always worth it when it can be found.

_I never knew there were such lovely colors. And the big surprise is the red in your cheeks, the gold in your hair, the blue in your eyes._

Primrose came bounding down the stairs in her typical clumsy fashion. The gawky girl stopped at the foot of the stairs as she took in the bizarre tableau she had come across. Her mother standing next to her father's old piano singing softly as Johanna tinkled the keys delicately. She caught her sister's eye and they shared a puzzled but pleased look.

Johanna finished the song with a small melodic flourish and flushed deeply when the three other women clapped enthusiastically. "Would you like to stay for dinner Johanna? As a thank you for that tedious work?"

"It was no bother at all. I'm glad I could help. This is a really fu-" She cast a glance toward Prim. "A really great piano. Fantastic, actually."

Mrs. Everdeen smiled fondly. "My husband was very enamored with that instrument."

"I can see why. They don't make the uprights like this anymore. The woodwork inside is amazing." Johanna picked up her toolbox and started toward the door. "I appreciate the offer but it's okay. I should get home to my mom. Thanks though."

Mrs. Everdeen nodded and went to busy herself in the kitchen putting away their groceries. Katniss followed Johanna to the door, opening her mouth to speak when Prim ducked under her arm and stood between them. "Hey Jo would you be able to teach me piano? Daddy was supposed to teach me but he never did."

Katniss shared a helpless look with Johanna who averted her gaze down to the blue-eyed girl. "I could try. Why don't you talk it over with your mom first and then have Katniss let me know, okay?"

Prim nodded and wrapped her arms around Johanna's torso tightly. The affectionate gesture caused the older girl to visibly tense and pat Prim's head awkwardly. The little girl took off into the kitchen and Katniss leaned into Johanna, placing her hands on the shorter girl's hips. "Am I going to see you later?"

Her lips curled into a smirk. "Do you want to?" She already knew the answer to that but she enjoyed hearing the answer. In place of responding Katniss leaned down and kissed her girlfriend. Johanna pulled away and kissed the top of Katniss's nose lovingly. "Stay over tonight. My mom is going away for the weekend after dinner."

Katniss's gray eyes widened. They had never spent a night together. Her confidence quavered for a second before she answered. "Yes! What time?"

Johanna shrugged. "Whenever you want. My mom is leaving around five." Katniss gripped the sides of Johanna's neck and pressed their lips together in another, hungrier kiss before pulling away. Katniss couldn't help the smile spread across her face at Johanna's lost expression after she kissed her. Each and every time they kissed she always looked like it was the first time. It filled her stomach with a feeling like she had drank too much; warm and lightheaded and happy.

Once she closed the door behind Johanna she turned to walk into the kitchen where her mother was already prepping dinner. She stood in the doorway of the kitchen and casually leaned against the doorframe. When her mother turned from their stove she immediately narrowed her eyes at her daughter. "Whatever it is, I can already feel myself saying no."

Katniss crossed her arms. "Can I stay over Jo's tonight?" Her mother paused mid-wipe of her hands on her apron. "See? Not so bad. You love Johanna."

Mrs. Everdeen looked over her reading glasses at Katniss. She could feel the anxious hope radiating off Katniss in waves. Her motherly instinct screamed no. An unsupervised sleepover between two newly in love teenagers spelled disaster. But the slightly more rational part of her brain that remembered seventeen-years-old wanted to relent.

"I assume Polly won't be present?" Katniss's silence spoke for her. "I'm sure you realize why this makes me uncomfortable. You know I like Johanna very much."

"Nothing's going to happen. Trust me."_ I've tried_ were the unspoken words just on the outside of her answer.

Mrs. Everdeen let out a sigh. Had it really been that long since Katniss was just a little girl with a braid in her hair and a shy disposition? Now here she was, nearly a woman, about to have her first night over in a romantic partner's home. Confidence spilling over the edges like an overfilled wine cup. Just in the last two months alone Katniss's attitude had changed quickly: she was lively and engaging, doing well in school, and nearly as cheerful as she had been when her father was alive.

"Okay."

"Okay?" Katniss repeated excitedly. She scampered forward and hugged her mother tightly.

Mrs. Everdeen rolled her eyes in a feigned exapseration. "Yes yes you can go. Just eat dinner with your sister and I first." Katniss called a million thank you's over her shoulder as she leapt up the stairs and began to furiously overpack for her stay with Johanna. Her mother had been considerably more understanding when she "came out" to her a few days after her first kiss in the shop. A new light had been opened between them by the easy exchange. Katniss had always felt more of a kismet with her father, but her mother was starting to understand her as well. Or maybe Katniss was finally receptive to it.

* * *

_The absence of God will bring you comfort, baby. Plannin's for the poor so let's pretend that we're rich._

"I told you," Johanna said with a husk in her voice. She stared up at her ceiling that was partially clouded by smoke. Was it the ceiling? Or her vision? By the third joint Johanna knew her perception despite her tolerance of the stuff, was beginning to be questionable. "This record is off the hook. But it's even better to have a little help."

After they had watched _Blue Is The Warmest Colour_ Johanna brought Katniss up to her room to listen to music. She needed a distraction badly because her choice in film didn't exactly make it easy to keep her hands to herself. The love scene alone had stirred inside her stomach and she couldn't even look at Katniss. She was deeply struck by the gorgeous film and even more so by the superb score and soundtrack. But she was about to hang Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux for inciting her insides.

Katniss, however, had spent the bulk of the film watching Johanna watch the screen. She didn't understand French and detested reading subtitles so she settled on watching Johanna's chest rise and fall erratically depending on the scene. Watching the slow crawl of blush creep up her breastplate and to her neck during the sex scene.

Katniss enjoyed being in Johanna's room. It was a loft in the top part of the home with sharply angled ceilings almost entirely covered in posters of rock bands Johanna loved and black and whites of jazz musicians Katniss didn't recognize. Her one wall was a massive built-in stuffed with vinyl records, the other two large bookcases overflowing with books. A far corner housed around twelve instruments - an electric and acoustic guitar, a drum set equipped with various percussion instruments, a small piano, several brass instruments and the zenith of her collection: her massive record player. It was Johanna all over: it looked like her, smelled like her.

The weed they shared was particularly fragrant and while she was not unaccustomed to getting high, Katniss felt an overwhelming calming clarity as she lay next to Johanna on the bed. Every moment she had spent with her that night had been wonderful. The beautiful film, the buttery popcorn, the soft feel of Johanna's skin against hers as they curled on the couch, the heat coming off of Johanna as she blatantly gawked during the explicit sex scenes. All of it had been amazing.

_I'm not my body or how I choose to destroy it._

Katniss looked over at Johanna who was eyes-closed blissfully listening to the music. Her hair was down and splayed across her pillow, her figure hidden beneath a tight fitting mauve tank top and a loose pair of grey sweatpants. Her face recently washed free of make up except for the near permanent line of eyeliner under her lids.

Katniss rolled over and positioned both get knees on either side of Johanna's thighs. She watched those deep brown eyes fly open like a doll and stare up confusedly at her. "What are you doing?" Johanna's breathless voice came up from beneath her.

"We've been together two months and you have barely tried to touch me." Katniss's hair fell to the side as she examined Johanna's facial reactions. "Do you not find me attractive?"

"What?" Johanna immediately replied, her eyes as large as chestnuts. "You can't possibly think that. You have no idea, the effect you can have."

"The effect? Me?"

Johanna smiled. She pushed herself up so their stomachs touched and braced her weight back on the palms of her hands. "Yes you."

Katniss protruded her lower lip. "I don't understand you then. You like me, want to date me, yeah?" Johanna nodded in place of words. "Mm okay. But you don't want to have sex with me? And you want nobody but our moms to know we're together." Katniss chuckled at Johanna's scandalized look. "It's just a question."

Johanna let a soft silence fall between them like a lightly falling snow. The whole night had been so perfect that she didn't want to dare and ruin it with clumsy words. "Finnick and Annie know," she protested weakly. "Katniss..."

The beginning of her sentence was interrupted by the other girl slowly tracing the pads of her fingers along Johanna's lips. "I like the way your mouth moves when you say my name."

The darker-haired girl's chest bubbled in an amused laugh, bouncing Katniss minimally with the movement. "You are so blazed love," Johanna affectionately replied, stroking Katniss's cheek with the back of her hand. "Let's go to sleep."

_Maybe love won't let you down. All of your failures are trainin' grounds. And just as your back is turned you'd be surprised, she says, as your solitude subsides._

The gray-eyed girl stared down hard at her girlfriend before obediently sliding off of her and flopping on to her back. Johanna got off the bed and pulled the needle from the record. She padded back across the room, turning off the light beside them as she got underneath her covers.

"Good night," Johanna murmured, finding Katniss's lips in the dark and kissing her chastely.

Katniss remained unmoved. She turned over and faced the opposite wall, eyes wide open. Her mind betrayed the rest of her muscles and kept her agonizingly awake. Johanna's breathing became soft and shallow when Katniss spoke up again. "I'm sorry I just don't get it."

Johanna released an annoyed sigh. "What? How to sleep? Close your eyes and count sheep or some shit brainless." Her voice was a lower timbre than normal and tingled down Katniss's spine like fingertips.

Katniss huffed haughtily and turned over with more exertion than necessary to rouse Johanna from the edge of sleep. "No, _brainless_, why you won't sleep with me."

Johanna sighed a mournful breath and turned over. "I'm _trying_ to sleep with you and you won't shut up."

Katniss glared. "You know what I meant. You slept with fucking Cashmere with no problem but suddenly you're Sister Johanna Mason sworn to celibacy with me." Katniss reached over Johanna's body so their torsos pressed together tightly and she turned the lamp on to see Johanna's face. The faint yellow glow illuminated the rueful and guilty expression Johanna wore. "Don't you want me?"

Johanna rolled her eyes. "Oh come on. You know I do."

Katniss pupils, dilated in both inebriation and desire, nearly blocked out the gray of her eyes as she squinted at Johanna. "So take me."

Johanna's stomach fluttered hard. It wasn't butterflies in there: it was chainsaw-wielding dragons tearing up her insides. "Katniss please. It's not that I don't want you or that I don't find you attractive. You're the most stunning girl I've ever seen and I want you in all inches of me. You consume me whole." Katniss stayed hovered above her, propped up on her elbow. "I don't want to ruin this," she admitted, softening her voice. "I'm not good at this and to be honest you scare the shit out of me."

"Scare you?" The incredulity in her voice was plain as paper.

"Yes you scare me. I'm afraid that I'm going to fuck this up and it'll be over." Johanna's brown eyes stared down toward her magenta blanket.

_I'll teach you how to swim if you turn the bad in me into good again._

The thought had occurred to Katniss before. It was clear as day that Johanna, for all her sexuality and past lovers, was completely inexperienced in terms of romance. Katniss never had a girlfriend or a boyfriend so she didn't know the rules either. All she knew was how bodily she craved Johanna whenever she was near. And when she wasn't. She pragmatically figured they'd fumble their way through their relationship until the newness wore off and it became more comfortable. Isn't that how love worked? Fumbling awkwardly until you hit the solid foundation of your love and work your way up from there? Katniss didn't know.

"I'm sorry," came Katniss's gentle reply. She placed her head in the crook of Johanna's arm and wrapped her arm protectively around Johanna's waist. "I understand."

"Do you?" Her eyebrows rose questioningly.

"Yes. I don't want to ruin anything either. We'll go slow. I suppose when the time is right we'll know." Her tone was less convincing than her words. Johanna reached over and switched off her lamp, closing the discussion for the night.

"Good night, Jo." Katniss nuzzled into Johanna's arm and found herself suddenly drowsy by the light pine and flower scent of Johanna's skin. They fell asleep that way: entangled in each other, nerves somehow both on fire with unspent energetic arousal and calmed by the presence of the other.

_And I say there's trouble when everything is fine. The need to destroy things creeps up on me every time._

* * *

Note of the Author Kind: I a little bit just wrote this all out in one night so here's to hoping it's good! Thank you all, once more and again, for the kind words and silent but also appreciated follows.

Music: "Girl Inform Me" by The Shins, "Cosmic Love" by Florence + The Machine, "I Used to be Color Blind" by Ella Fitzgerald or Fred Astaire, "The Absence of God" by Rilo Kiley.


	6. Chapter 6

Most teenagers enjoy summer - the freedom from school, the sunny beach weather, the warm nights - but Johanna enjoyed the cold. She liked the soft quiet of snow, the bloated gray clouds that waddled in front of the deceivingly cold blue sky, the bundling of scarves and coats. And now that she was with Katniss, she enjoyed the red blush on Katniss's cheeks as they met the sharp slap of wind in the air. Each day she waited on the corner of her block for Katniss and Prim to come down the sidewalk, breathing the brittle wind as she did so. She waited to see the blips of brown and blonde hair through the fat snow and the rosy cheeks of her girlfriend.

_I'd say you make a perfect angel in the snow. All crushed out on the way you are._

Winter spelled death for a lot of things - flowers, warmth, trees, bare skin, easy walks through clear streets - but to Johanna it always smelled fresh. Snow covered everything that was within the earth and froze it, keeping the nutrients ready for the inevitable warming of spring. That particular day there was an overcast above her head, drooping pregnant gray clouds pushing out large but light crystals of snow. Johanna shoved her hands into the pocket of her wool coat and tilted her head back to stare at the sky. Her tongue automatically emerged from her mouth to catch the fresh flakes and feel them melt in her mouth.

The February wind wrapped around her as she waited for the sisters to arrive on her block. While Katniss was fairly punctual, Prim was a time-sucking disaster who took decades to get ready for anything. When she finally saw the peek of blonde hair bouncing down the sidewalk a smile widened on her face, even though they would probably be five minutes late. She withdrew one of her earbuds from her ear and tucked it into her coat.

It was worth it though, to see Katniss's reddened face approach her happily, hurrying her sister alongside her. "Keep up, Little Duck! We're going to be late." Johanna heard Katniss's voice through the gentle snow and smiled. Once the girls got to her she took Katniss's gloved hand in her own. "I'm sorry," Katniss said, leaning down slightly to kiss Johanna on the cheek as they begin their short trek to the school. Immediately her hand replaced her lips on Johanna's face. "You're freezing."

"I _have _been waiting about ten minutes in the freezing cold because some little blonde wants to look pretty for her boyfriend." Prim nudged Johanna as she walked beside her, a pale red blush coming across her alabaster skin. Prim let out a small whine and Johanna sighed. "I know, I know, he's 'not' your boyfriend. He's just a boy you talk about nonstop every time I come over to teach you piano."

Prim gave a haughty sigh and compressed her lips. Katniss chuckled at the exchange, letting go of Johanna's hand in favor of wrapping it around her arm and snuggling into her side as they walked. Winter could never feel cold with Katniss leaning into her like that. The season was only cold if you were lonely, otherwise there was warmth to be found inside the curled embrace of someone else. While she missed seeing Katniss's extraordinary legs in skirts and shorts, she was just as lovely in thick jeans and knit scarves.

_Don't you know that I love you? Sometimes I feel like a cold still life that fell down here to lay beside you._

Johanna was still insistent that they keep their relationship a secret even though it was becoming increasingly difficult to avoid the natural touches between them. It had gotten to the point where she'd text Katniss a set of coordinates - bathroom, north wing, second floor, ten minutes - and meet her there to kiss her until they both saw stars. She was also still insistent that they not become intimate in spite of Katniss's repeated attempts to persuade her otherwise.

It was getting harder and harder every day for Johanna to resist the primal urge inside her to explore their relationship further. Sex had always been very easy for her. It came as naturally to her as breathing and walking; more accurately, it came to her like music. You could wax poetic all day about the similarities between music and sex - Johanna was equally talented and interested in both. However, her interest in sex was not as deep as her love of music. She could spend weeks poring over a great classical piece but she could only spend a few hours with a girl before she was bored.

She had never "come out" in any sort of strict sense of the term. Her preteen days were spent plowing through lesbian movies she downloaded online and fawning over posters of attractive women on her walls. Of course there was that lost year she spent absolutely _hating _herself for having these thoughts, nearing full-blown homophobia until her mother finally intervened and set her "straight." Johanna never took for granted her mother's wide open acceptance. She wouldn't have been herself without it.

The first time she had ever kissed a girl was at summer camp when she was thirteen. Some girl from another town that she never saw again; a freckled brunette named Jamie with murky eyes and full, kissable lips. The first time she had slept with a girl was Cashmere back when she had just entered high school. There was nothing particularly special about it. They got drunk at a party and somehow fumbled their way upstairs and ended up having an awkward but exhilarating night of discovering how their bodies worked.

Cashmere demanded they not tell anyone for a myriad of reasons: Johanna was a freshman, a girl, not exactly popular, and all of the above would ruin Cashmere's carefully constructed reputation. Johanna had no qualms about obliging this deal and used the experience to embolden her sexual prowess. In a matter of only three years she had slept with another handful of girls, each time seducing a girl who had never been with a female before. She became addicted to the thrilling passion of bringing a girl to a place she had never been before. Johanna enjoyed the sensation of eliciting reactions from her partner that she never experienced. It was like peeling the plastic off of a new electronic.

The churning of the gears in her mind cranked differently as she and Katniss slowly coupled. For both their sakes, she had been putting off getting to that step. Her past experiences had taught her one thing: sex was the death of the thrill. Once a girl was had, all her vulnerabilities and skin laid bare, there was little more to her that Johanna cared about. It reminded her of a song she really loved: "_Talking leads to touching, touching leads to sex...and then there is no mystery left._" What was beyond that step for them? She didn't know.

Today was special. It was February 16th, which meant exactly two months until Junior Prom. The walls of the school were a smattering of blood red and crisp white posters depicting the "Roarin' Twenties" theme the class had chosen for the event. It was a '20s style dress-up dance held in the larger gym inside the school, and in spite of its campy theme it was still a big deal with the stressed class. The process of beginning to select colleges and prepare for the next year was always a stressor on the sixteen and seventeen year olds. To alleviate this, the junior prom was held a month before the senior one to give them something to break up the endless amount of applications and midterms that normally plagued that time of year.

For Johanna, that meant asking Katniss a very important question: If she would mind going to prom together. In one of their many small arguments about being "closeted" Katniss had repeatedly said the only compromise she would make would be agreeing to this forced abstinence in exchange for being "out" at school. Going to prom officially as a couple would settle that argument and hopefully stave off Katniss for a while.

As their relationship had progressed over the last six months, Johanna realized she was being unreasonable. She didn't need to protect Katniss, especially if she didn't want the protection. So since the beginning of the year she and Finnick had been brainstorming ideas on how to ask Katniss to prom. This way Katniss could have both things she wanted - to be out _and_ to go to prom.

She ruled out some big announcement or an attention-getting gesture. She also didn't want to decorate her locker or do something tired and cheesy. Instead they decided on something they both thought Katniss would like: Archery.

A few miles outside of town there was an archery range that Johanna knew Katniss like to frequent. A week earlier Johanna had approached the owner, a kind older man who knew Katniss well by now, and asked about putting together a special archery range just for her, for just one day. On February 16th Johanna would drive Katniss to her bi-weekly archery lesson, but the targets would be a little different. They would be equipped with a special mechanism Johanna had built herself in woodshop.

Finnick could barely contain his excitement and both Annie and Johanna had to keep him away from Katniss for the entire week leading to the date. But his nervousness was contagious and as Johanna drove to the archery range with Katniss she felt herself fidgeting. Katniss watched her body language carefully, as she always did, with a delicate eye that detected even the smallest amount of movement.

"Is everything all right?" Katniss ventured in a soft voice, looking over at her girlfriend.

Johanna was quick with a smile and a tight-lipped response. "Of course!"

Gray eyes squinted in her direction but she let the topic drop as Johanna pulled the old car into the lot. She cut the engine and turned to Katniss, who was busy putting together her things. Johanna got out of the car and walked around to Katniss's door, pulling it open for her. Katniss smiled in thanks and got her duffel bag with her quiver and strapped her bow over her shoulder.

"You're coming in with me?"

Johanna nodded. "Yeah, I thought maybe I'd hang out for a few, if that's okay?"

Katniss tensed a little before she responded. She didn't like to show off but she was very good at archery. At one point she had been the best in her home state for three years in a row. She was on the verge of a national championship when her father had died. She would have given up on it entirely but it was one of her father's favorite things to do. She kept a part of him alive, she felt, by continuing to put the arrow on the bow and let it fly.

What harm would it do for Johanna to see just how good she was? "Sure."

They entered the facility and Katniss greeted the familiar faces behind the desks. Some of the range was indoors, mostly for beginners. Katniss preferred the outdoor range that was set on a large field of plowed-over grass and high walls made of bales of hay. Once she got her things together she noticed something strange. For starters, there was no one else using the targets. Additionally, there were only five targets instead of the usual eight.

A skeptical glance toward Johanna went unnoticed by the brown-eyed girl, who was busy eyeing the intricate woodwork on the outside of the facility. With her suspicion firmly in her bones she lifted the bow and aimed at the first target. After a few moments of concentration she let the arrow fly.

It sunk into the fabric of the target dead center and suddenly a huge wooden 'P' popped up behind it, bidden by the target itself. Johanna watched from behind Katniss, arms crossed over her chest. She bit down hard on her lower lip to subdue a smile that was fighting hard to emerge. Katniss moved a few feet to her right and went to hit the next target.

'R'

She side-stepped again to her right and hit the next one.

'O'

And the next one.

'M'

And the last one.

'?'

Her bow slowly was aimed toward the ground as she looked out into the range. Each target was rigged with a letter behind it, spelling out the words Johanna clearly couldn't have just said to her like a normal person. She whirled around on her heel and looked at the girl who was poorly suppressing a grin. "Really?" Johanna nodded eagerly. Katniss placed the bow on the ground and jogged to Johanna, throwing her arms around her shoulders and planting a large kiss on her. "Of course I'll go to prom with you."

Johanna was secretly relieved. In spite of the trouble she had gone through securing the range for them and engineering the pop-up letters, she wasn't sure Katniss would say yes. "Yeah?"

"Yeah you secret romantic." Katniss placed her hand on Johanna's sternum affectionately, her other hand cupped around the back of Johanna's head, gently stroking her hair. Katniss filled with an irregular pride at how she was the only one able to draw out this adorable, romantic side of Johanna. The abrasive, enigmatic side she showed at school was clearly a front for the sentimental girl beneath. She kissed her again, then pulled Johanna's head to rest on her shoulder.

"Together? Like, _together_-together?"

"Yeah," Johanna breathed onto Katniss's neck, giving her a small peck on her pulse. Katniss shivered. "Together-together."

* * *

As winter melted into spring, the blankets of snow on the ground rolled up into bundles to expose the fresh green grass underneath. They only had two full months of school left and Katniss was glad to see the white devilish material disappear. Johanna seemed to like the winter festivities of making angels in the snow, snow-tubing and freezing at night staring up at the clear, cold sky, but Katniss hated the staleness of it all.

She was overjoyed to see the ice melting into the streets, making little rivers and straits that lead to the gutters. She was even more overjoyed to be nearing the end of their junior year. Katniss had done much better this year than last and had diligently been applying to colleges near and far. Her SAT scores were high and her grades were good so she had the pick of any college she wanted.

Of course, college was the furthest thing from her mind tonight. It was an unseasonably warm April night and Katniss had all her windows open in her bedroom. She sat in front of her dresser applying her make-up for the prom dance. Johanna had given her several "helpful" jazz records and documentaries to get Katniss properly suited for the party. They played in the background as she applied a heavy dose of eyeliner around her eyes.

She had decided on a short flapper dress in a deep crimson with knee-high stockings and a pair of impossible to walk in stiletto heels. Her mother had found a long boa of ambiguous provenance that Katniss didn't question and she tossed it around her neck. Outside the loud rumble of a car engine brought a smile to her features as she gave herself a look in the mirror.

Johanna's pearl black car sat at the curb, rumbling loudly at the edge of the Everdeen property. Like Johanna did with all things, she took impeccable (near obsessive, Katniss thought) care of her car. She loved old things and her vehicle was no exception: A pristine 1966 Pontiac GTO with all its original parts. Katniss liked the smell of old leather and pine from the small air freshener that dangled from her rearview mirror.

_Hold you in my arms. I just wanted to hold you in my arms._

Her eyes scanned Johanna's outfit and it curled her lips into a smirk. She was wearing a tailored pinstripe suit and a wide-brimmed fedora. Instead of pants she wore a pinstripe skirt that cut just above her knee. In the small section between the two seats sat a wooden Tommy gun that rattled quietly with the shaking of the car's engine.

"We look like Bonnie and Clyde," Katniss remarked as Johanna accelerated and they took off toward Finnick's house.

Johanna chuckled and shook her head, reaching her hand over to adjust the knob on her radio. She refused to outfit the car with any sort of modern appliance so they were often forced to listen to some shoddy FM station on their trips in the car. "Bonnie Parker wished she was even a third as hot as you are," Johanna replied with a scoff.

_My life. You electrify my life. Let's conspire to ignite. All that souls that would die just to feel alive._

"Such a charmer," Katniss replied in a faux New-Yorker tone. "Such a sweetheart." Katniss pretended to chomp gum in her mouth much to Johanna's visible chagrin. She parked outside Finnick's house and the thunderous rumble of her car spoke instead of the car's horn. Finnick, dressed in a sharp black suit and a pair of spats, emerged from his home with Annie - dressed in a modest sequin black dress - hanging off his arm.

His hair was slicked back and Annie touched it lightly as they approached the car. Katniss got out to let them in behind her seat and the four of them were off toward the school. "Jo! Are you like the female Al Capone?"

"Excuse you, it's Stephanie St. Clair." Finnick raises a pale eyebrow and Johanna sighed. "Madam Queen? The most notorious female gangster in America?" No one in the car supplied any support and Johanna rolled her eyes. "Whatever, fine, yeah, a female Al Capone."

_But I'll never let you go. If you promise not to fade away, not to fade away._

Once the car was parked and all four teenagers filed out of the vehicle, they stood at the threshold of the school together. This would be the first time anyone knew for a fact that Johanna and Katniss were a couple. Her palms were slightly clammy and despite the Tommy gun she had made from wood strapped to her back, she felt defenseless. The two of them were at the mercy of everyone inside.

Finnick and Annie opened the door to the gymnasium, flooding the outside with bright lights and neo-jazz music. Johanna stood still, wide brown eyes with tiny pupils trying to gather up the necessary courage to enter the building. Intuitive by nature, Katniss turned to Johanna, taking the girl's chin and forcing Johanna to look at her. Her heels added extra distance to their natural height difference; her mouth was perfectly at level with Johanna's nose most of the time, but tonight it was at her forehead so she found herself looking down at the other girl.

"Johanna Mason, do you need a pep talk?" Katniss asked with a hint of humor.

"More like a shot of tequila and a billy club to beat anyone who says anything." She looked up at her girlfriend and smiled weakly.

Katniss guided Johanna's lips toward hers and kissed her - when she felt her pulling away she slid her tongue along Johanna's bottom lip and pulled a shudder from within the dark-haired girl. The flash of desire in Johanna's eyes was very rapidly replaced by fear. "It doesn't matter what happens in there, Jo. Literally nothing they say or do or even how they look at us is going to change my mind about you."

Johanna sighed. "It's not just tonight. It's every day until we graduate."

"So what? So they're going to tease me? Big deal I've been teased all my life. I'm not very good at making friends and I'm not going to get better anytime soon." Katniss tucked her arm into Johanna's and guided them both into the gymnasium.

Johanna found herself expecting the scratching of a needle on a record, the immediate freezing of everyone in the room, or some kind of overblown comical reaction. No one noticed them enter. Finnick and Annie found them immediately and brought them to get some punch and take goofy pictures. Maybe the night wouldn't be so bad after all.

* * *

Not one for school-sponsored dry dances, Johanna found herself toward the back of the room. She had danced with Katniss nearly all night but was nearing the height of her already low tolerance point for revelry. She talked amicably with Mr. Abernathy who actually seemed to be enjoying himself, possibly for the first time ever inside the school's walls. A slower song came on and Johanna watched as many of the students coupled up.

When he left to go break up two kids having an argument, his presence was replaced by another blonde. A smaller, but equally as miserable blonde. Johanna filled her lungs and leveled her eyes at the taller blonde. Whatever stupid junior boy had invited Cashmere as his date was going to get a punch in the groin. "What do you want, Cash?"

_My love must be a kind of blind love. I can't see anyone but you._

Cashmere played a remarkably sinister grin on her lips and looked out toward the dance floor. She tucked one arm across her chest and under her elbow, the other bent to drink from her red solo cup. "First of all, don't even act like you're not going to miss me when I graduate in two months." Johanna loudly scoffed. "How long have you and Everdeen been a thing?"

"Why is it that every time your mouth moves I immediately want to stick a gun in my mouth?" Johanna eyed the dance floor nervously but found Katniss dancing the slow dance with Peeta Mellark. Hopefully she wouldn't see their interaction because she imagined a jealous Katniss was not a pleasant one.

Cashmere whistled. "My my, Jo, what a temper. If I recall correctly I think you're pretty fond of how my mouth moves." The older girl watched Johanna's fingers grasp her cup even tighter. She let out a low chuckle. "Does she know about us?"

Johanna's head snapped to the side. "'Us?' There is no 'us,' Cash. If you're asking if she knows you and I used to fuck around then yeah, she knows."

_Are the stars out tonight? I don't know if it's cloudy or bright. I only have eyes for you, dear._

Cashmere wasn't bothered by Johanna's attitude. She had always found Johanna's temperament incredibly attractive. It was one of the reasons she had sought her out at that party. That and about three shots of tequila too many. Their agreement had been beneficial for her: she didn't have to deal with anyone knowing what sexual proclivities she preferred, and she had sex on a fairly regular basis. It was always violent and hurried and she had found herself slightly addicted to the rush. Not that she would admit it to Jo, but she was suffering withdrawal. Sex with her boyfriend was ...unsatisfying, to say the least.

"I guess that's why you haven't met with me in months, hm?" Johanna ran her tongue along her teeth and didn't answer back. Cashmere had texted her off and on over the last six months, but she had barely returned them. Cashmere pursed her painted lips. "So how is she?"

"The fuck do you mean, 'how is she?'"

"At soccer, you dumbass. What do you think? In bed! What's the new girl like?" Cashmere took another long sip of her drink before returning her attention to the incensed younger girl. She enjoyed squirming her way under Johanna's skin. Only second to squirming her way under Johanna's clothes. Having known Johanna for the past few years, she had been able to begin unraveling the younger girl. She knew what made her tick. And by the slow blush on her neck and the diverted eye contact, she knew she struck a nerve. "Oh my God you haven't fucked her yet? Isn't that just adorable? Pure as a freshly fallen snow." She tipped her gaze. "You must be _dying_."

_You are here, so am I. Maybe millions of people go by._

"Shut the fuck up, Cash. I don't have to stand here and listen to this."

Johanna made one step toward leaving but she heard Cashmere's singsong-y tone behind her. "You do if you don't want me to go over there and give her all the details about us." Her sentence had the desired effect of freezing Johanna where she stood. The shorter girl turned around slowly and Cashmere took a moment to drink her in appearance. "Wouldn't it just kill her pure little heart to know how truly fucked up you are?"

"How fucked up _I _am?" Johanna coughed out the question as she advanced toward the blonde. Nothing about Cashmere's vindictive personality attracted her. She was already plenty angry herself. Her attraction was purely physical. It's like Frank Underwood said on _House of Cards_:" Everything is about sex. Except sex. Sex is about power." Their "relationship" was about power. Fooling the other into thinking she had the upper hand. They each held each other's reputation over the edge of a building and that mutated into brutal, wicked sex that aimed to both satisfy and punish. For a while Johanna had craved it.

But since meeting Katniss, she felt she was losing her taste for blondes. For the violence. She was losing her taste for anyone else.

_But they all disappear from view._

"Mhm." Cashmere knew the longer she talked to Johanna the higher the chance that someone would see them together and question it. So she opted to swoop in for the kill. "The next time I call you, you _will_ answer. If you don't I'll just drive all the way down to Twelfth Street and have a little one on one with your new thing." The blonde brushed passed her to make her way back toward her friends. She tilted her head down toward Johanna's ear. "I'll tell her all about the dark, dirty things you have done behind closed doors." Johanna looked at her from the corner of her eyes. She could see the mocking pout on Cashmere's ironically angelic features.

She knew this wasn't going to be easy. While most of the class had acknowledged them by now and nothing had happened, Johanna was forever waiting for the other shoe to drop. And there it was. An ultimatum if there ever was one. Cashmere, for reasons Johanna could not figure out, knew the three secrets that she kept from Katniss. Well, the three secrets Johanna kept from pretty much everyone:

1. The scope of Johanna's physical relationship with other girls.

2. Her father.

3. Her involvement in a jazz band.

Cashmere knew how many girls Johanna had slept with because she had personally tracked down each and every one. She knew about Mr. Mason because of Polly's friendship with Cashmere's father, and she knew about Johanna's band because she had accidentally discovered her last year. The manipulative blonde had been using all of the above information to keep Johanna wrapped around her finger.

Since she had started seeing Katniss (a fact she also knew prior to confronting her) she felt the grip she had around Johanna loosen. That was ...unacceptable. She did not _lose. _She did not lose volleyball games, boyfriends, or fuck buddies. She especially didn't lose to homely girls from the outskirts of town. She rejoined her friends gathered around the punch bowl, but her piercing green stare was not on the dolled up girls and guys around her. No, she was stealing sly glances at a certain wannabe female gangster cutting into a dance between the baker and the new girl. She watched their easy movements, the simple way they seemed to fit together, the mirrored images of smiles on their faces. She watched, and she calculated.

_And I only have eyes for you._

* * *

Music: Elliot Smith "Angel in the Snow," Muse "Starlight," and The Flamingo's "I Only Have Eyes For You."


	7. Chapter 7

**Warning:** I changed the rating to M for this chapter. It's not particularly explicit but without spoiling anything ...I think you understand why I made this change. Proceed accordingly. Things happen between two girls that if it makes you uncomfortable, like ..wtf are you doing here anyway?

* * *

_I've been a bad, bad girl._

Johanna was certain that her impulsive streak was deeply embedded in her DNA. Her father had been a gambler, a risk-taker, a loose cannon and half of his terrible genome was inside of her. Even though she hadn't spent much time with him, he had imprinted on her his rogue sensibilities. Her mother was a planner. It suited her well in her occupation as a builder and shop-owner; her business mind was programmed to interpret, pause, reflect, execute with care. Johanna knew she would have to reach deep into herself to find that part of herself that came from her mother.

She was determined not to let Cashmere affect her relationship with Katniss. Too much of the last three years of her life had been dictated by the nefarious blonde. When she had accidentally discovered Johanna's jazz band she somehow managed to hold that as blackmail over Johanna's head: An agreement to never go public with their affair. Johanna's intimate expression of music meant as much to her as Cashmere's reputation did to the blonde. Cashmere's knowledge of Johanna's dad was because her mother had stupidly confided in Cashmere's father. And of course, Cashmere somehow finagled a way to learn about each and every straight girl Johanna had lain in bed with.

_It's a sad, sad world. When a girl will break a boy just because she can._

A lesson her father had taught her: How to disarm an enemy. His lesson had been a straight-forward instruction in taking down an armed man, but Johanna knew it translated just as well metaphorically. Her father didn't deal in metaphors but he wasn't wrong. If Cashmere was wielding her secrets as an enemy might wield a firearm, then she had to take the weapon away.

Wear your secrets like armor and no one can hurt you.

The night had to be perfectly executed. There was no time to wing it like her father would have done. She was going to reveal all three advantages Cashmere had over her to Katniss in one night. Take her to the jazz bar where her band performed, explain to her the sordid story of her father, and by hook or crook explain why she had slept with all those girls. Place all her cards on the table and hope and when she looked up, Katniss was still playing.

It almost didn't happen because the second Mrs. Everdeen and Prim had left the Everdeen household after dinner, Katniss had pinned her against the kitchen counter and seared her with a bruising kiss. Their embraces were oftentimes frenzied like this - gnashing of teeth, bruising lips, scratching skin. Johanna had been right when they first met - Katniss was the type of girl who enjoyed the feeling of nails down her sides.

She knew because she did it at that moment and was compensated by a husky moan. Reluctantly she pulled away. "As much as I am _loving _this right now, I want to take you somewhere tonight," Johanna said, interrupting Katniss's oral assault on her neck. Gray eyes flicked up to her own in a mixture of confusion and slight annoyance.

"Take me somewhere?" Katniss repeated dumbly.

"Yeah brainless, take you somewhere." Johanna let her hands travel down the length of Katniss's arms and she laced their fingers together gently. Her thumb traced light circles against Katniss's palms. "Two places actually. But we have to leave now."

Katniss raised a delicate brow. "This isn't an elaborate ruse to keep me out of your pants is it?" Johanna jabbed her in the ribs in jest and led her out of the house. The sweet grassy smell of summer hit her as they made their way toward Johanna's car. Katniss's smirk softened into a smile as Johanna held the door open for her. She slid into warm, worn leather and waited for her girlfriend.

Johanna expelled a shaky breath and turned the car on, trying to find solace in the familiar rumble of the engine. Her fingers fiddled with the radio dial as she tried to find a clear station for the short trip. The club was about twenty minutes outside of the Panem town linits, tucked into a row of stores and a Starbucks.

_Don't you tell me to deny it. I've done wrong and I wanna suffer for my sins._

It was a much larger city than Panem, glistening with twinkling street lamps and busy with the bustle of taxi cabs and impatient drivers. Johanna found she enjoyed the cacophony of the city to the orchestra of animals and insects at home. She parked the car outside the club's doors. In a habit now ingrained in her, Katniss waited for Johanna to open her door. The shorter girl insisted on the chivalry and Katniss found it charming.

"Wow, this place is gorgeous." The building's facade looked like something out of an old movie: gilded trim, a bright black and white marquee, huge framed posters on the wall detailing the upcoming events. Since moving to Panem Katmiss rarely ventured outside the town line. She wasn't particularly fond of big cities; it was a major reason why she had almost preferred the move to Panem.

Johanna smiled like she had been the architect. "Built in 1914 as a silent movie theatre. They maintain Mary Pickford herself has visited but I have doubts. It was converted into a dance club in 1939 because they didn't want to make the leap to talkies." She smiled sardonically. "They thought it was a fad." Johanna took her hand and entwined their fingers as they entered the plush lobby. It had the musty smell of age as well as the sweet aroma of liquor and the hang of cigarettes. "It's been operating as a jazz club since then. Seventy-five years of operation, even as jazz pestered out in the late sixties and seventies."

"Jo!" A wrinkled man emerged from around the counter in the depth. Age had lowered his height but his bright white smile and loud voice seemed to command the room. He pulled Johanna into a cigar-soaked hug. He moved away and held her by the arms like a grandfather appeasing the appearance of a child. Familiar and loving. "It's not your night tonight, is it?"

"No Bogey, it's not."

"Good," the man replied, rubbing his perpetual five o'cloxk shadow with a rough scratch. "Give an old man a scare. I already forget what day it is without you tryin' to sneak a few days by me." He finally saw the other girl standing slightly behind Johanna and smiled his bright grin. "And who is this lovely lady?"

Johanna slid her arm around Katniss's waist and edged her forward. "This is Katniss."

Katniss observed as the two shared a knowing look and she saw the flush come on Johanna's cheeks. The gray-haired man looked at her fondly. "Ah so this is the famous Katniss Everdeen." Katniss shot them both a skeptical look but she stuck her hand out toward the man anyway. "She is much more gorgeous than you said."

Ignoring her hand he pulled Katniss into an unexpected hug. Johanna smirked and gently separated them by the shoulders. "Hey hands off, Boges."

"I was just given' her the treatment. I know this is your girl" He grinned cheekily. "Nice to meet you, Katniss. I'm Harold Bogeman, the proprietor of this here establishment. You can call me Bogey. Johanna has told us loads about you."

Katniss wanted to reply that she had never heard of him but she bit her tongue. "Nice to meet you Bogey."

"I'm going to show Katniss around if that's okay?" She knew it would be but she held too much respect for the man to assume.

"Sure! This is your home too darlin'. You need anything you shout a holler now. Real loud, you know how these ears don't work so good anymore." Johanna rolled her eyes and escorted Katniss into the main area of the club.

For Katniss it was like stepping into a time machine. Thin red carpet lined the floor with gold-plated railings bolted down into the fabric. Glass-topped round tables flanked by chrome chairs were scattered in a horseshoe pattern around the room. They stepped down the steps into the circular expanse before the stage where more tables and chairs were sat, currently empty and shining.

_What I need is a good defense. 'Cos I'm feeling like a criminal._

A few casually dressed men and women were busy polishing glassware and vacuuming the carpets. Johanna began explaining the operation to Katniss as she showed her around, periodically giving a familiar hello to a few of the employees.

She reached a small room at the end of a hallway lined with pictures of Bogey with various celebrities from the forties to today. The door was unmarked but Johanna opened it and led Katniss inside. It was a small dressing room outfitted with a mirror lined in bulbs and a small leather couch against the far wall. Various instruments made themeves comfortable around the room.

Katniss put the skeptical look back on her face. "This place is beautiful. Do you work here?" She found it surprising Johanna could keep a job because between school, her extra-curriculars and her mother's shop there didn't seem to be any time. Any free time she had Katniss tried to soak up like a sponge.

"Not exactly." Johanna turned the black canvas chair around that was sat in front of the mirror and dresser. As she did she revealed the stenciled name in white across the back: _Johanna_. Katniss looked up to the bashful smile of the other girl.

_And I need to be redeemed to the one I've sinned against. Because he's all I ever knew of love._

"You perform here?" she asked cautiously. Johanna nodded and looked around the room. These were her things. Even an old math textbook lay dusty in a corner. Had Katniss been paying more attention she would have even seen the small photo of her and Johanna at prom tucked into the frame that lined the mirror. "When?"

"Every other Saturday," Johanna revealed in a sheepish voice.

Katniss crossed her arms. "You've been lying to me? Why?"

Johanna sat in the chair and draped her arms over the sides. "I don't know. Nobody knows about this. It's just something I've always kept close to me. But I wanted to share it with you." Not _entirely_ untrue but Johanna conveniently left out the part where she was being blackmailed by her sometimes lover.

"How long have you been playing here?"

"Five years." Gray eyes went wide. "Yeah I know. I'm sorry I kept this from you."

"I mean I guess it's okay. It's not like we have to know every little thing about each other. You're allowed to have secrets." Katniss moved across the wooden floors over to Johanna and placed her hands on the arms of the chair. "You know how super hot it is that you play music, right? You could have used that to your advantage earlier. Seduced me with song and brought me back to your dressing room..."

Johanna smirked. "I think I seduced you just fine without it." She leaned up and bit Katniss's lower lip and yanked her into a kiss. Katniss didn't answer she just kissed her back with an equal ferocity. The heat built between them as it always did, making Katniss feel like their clothes were extraneous, like she always did.

Her lips dragged along Johanna's jaw until she met her destination at her ear. "Does that door lock?" Johanna'a throat moved and she nodded. She could feel Katniss smile against her earlobe as she ran her tongue along the lobe and dipped slightly into her ear. She emitted a gasp that made Katniss groan directly into her ear. "What do you say we christen that couch of yours?"

This was not the time to explain that her couch had already been christened. Many times. Instead she caught Katniss's intense gaze and tried to control her breathing as best she could. "This isn't our last stop, babe," Johanna explained with a tremor in her voice. Katniss pouted. Johanna got shakily onto her feet. If Katniss kept that up they never get where she wanted to go. She steeled her willpower.

_Heaven help me for the way I am._

* * *

Johanna cut the engine on an old stone bridge near the outskirts of town. She got out of the car and crossed the road to the other side. A four-foot ledge edged the road and Johanna straddled it, then swung her legs over and dangled them over the side. The bridge spanned over a small but active creek that emptied into a swampy lake that went out so far straight, like it could touch the horizon.

Katniss mimicked her seated position and Johanna took her hand. A long period of silence followed, puncutated by the sporadic croaking of frogs and near constant chirping of crickets. "This was the last place I saw my father." The brunette looked over at her girlfriend in surprise. Johanna had never spoken of her father before. There was only one photo of him that she had ever seen in her house: him holding a crying, swaddled Johanna fresh from the womb. He looked remarkably like Johanna in that photo; they shared the same uncomfortable look around children. Same piercing brown eyes.

"Before he was deployed overseas he took me here to go fishing. A last minute bonding. Except I was seven and _hated_ fishing." Johanna stared out toward the murky water. "He drank an entire six pack by himself and set the cans up where you're sitting. Taught me how to shoot a handgun."

Katniss felt surprised for the millionth time that night. "A seven year old?"

Johanna laughed. "Yeah he was the worst. I didn't realize it then. I thought he was badass." She pursed her lips and then ran her tongue along her mouth. "He was a bastard. Drank, gambled, just overall fucked up my mom's life for years. They got married at sixteen, had me at seventeen. He wasn't anywhere close to a father. Everyone in town knew it. One of those townwide former quarterback losers." She sighed. "Anyway he signed up for the army after 9/11 looking for some kind of glory. He was killed in combat in Iraq within a few months of being deployed."

"I'm sorry," Katniss replied reflexively. She looked out into the lake and tried to picture a young Johanna. An innocent dark-haired girl with long limbs she couldn't quite control. A slim face that could cut you with its piercing glances staring up at her father adoringly. Absorbing his lessons dutifully whilst still maintaining her independence. Probably getting frustrated she wasn't a good shot, pretending not to be frightened by the loud pop of the gun.

_Secrets I have held in my heart are harder to hide than I thought._

The shorter girl shrugged. "Don't be. Better he die pretending to be a hero than drink himself to death here." The certitude in Johanna's tone was not to be countered. So instead Katniss bounced her heels against the rough stone and enjoyed the warmth of Johanna's hand in hers.

"Why did you tell me all this tonight?"

_Maybe I just wanna be yours._

Deep brown hues eyed her warily. Johanna turned and tucked her leg beneath her knee and faced Katniss head on. "There's one more final thing you need to know about me." A brown eyebrow raised on a creaseless forehead but she made no sound. "I have ...sort of slept with a lot of different girls."

Katniss made a small choking noise in the back of her throat and tilted her head to the side. "How many is a lot?"

"I don't know," Johanna breezed, looking back out to the water. "Maybe fourteen or fifteen."

Katniss's gray eyes bulged nearly out of their sockets. "_Maybe_? You don't have like a master list somewhere?" Johanna rolled her eyes and Katniss tried to calm down. "How did you even manage to find 'fourteen or fifteen' gay girls in this town? The way people look at us you'd think we're the only lesbians within forty miles of the town square."

Normally Johanna would have snickered at Katniss's unfortunate but astute observation of Panem's small-town values. But the anvil hadn't yet been dropped. "They weren't gay. Maybe leaning that way, maybe they're gay or bisexual now but ..they were most definitely considering themselves heterosexual when I met them."

Katniss slid her hand from Johanna's grasp and placed it in front of her. This had certainly been a night of revelations. The way Johanna's posture had relaxed after her last sentence gave Katniss the inkling that she was done with her confessions for he night. Hopefully for a while. Katniss steeled herself and flicked her eyes up toward her girlfriend's. "Is that what I was? What I am? Some straight girl you want to corrupt?" The question came without malice, more like sorrow. "Another notch in your bedpost?"

Johanna looked appropriately horrified. "If that were true don't you think I'd have taken you up on your countless offers to sleep with me?"

Katniss shrugged. "I don't know how you seduced these girls. Maybe you take them on a late-night ride in your cool car and show them your adorable jazz club and then take them home and fuck them."

Her voice moved from honey to hell and Johanna had to bite back her surprise. "Katniss, it isn't anything like that." She moved hair from her face and sighed. "I am not proud of all of that. I didn't love any one of them. Not even close."

"So sex is just some fun thing you do at parties with girls you can't stand?" Her pointed glare cut straight through to Johanna's heart.

"It was," she answered honestly. "It was until I met you. I looked at you and I was just ...floored. Sure I'm attracted to you and I can't lie that my first thought may or may not have been wanting to hear your voice scream my name," Katniss blushed, "but I saw passed that. I wanted to get to know you. I wanted you to get to know me." Johanna dropped her gaze. "You're not like the other girls. Not to me."

A single finger was placed beneath her chin as Katniss lifted her head to make their gazes level. The lone flickering streetlamp across the street lit half of Katniss's face, but Johanna could see the singular emotion there. "Prove it." Her eyebrows knitted together. Katniss swung her legs back over and jumped back onto the road. "Prove it. If I'm not like them then take me home, bring me into your bedroom and prove it."

_Hold your hair in deep devotion. At least as deep as the Pacific Ocean._

_Maybe I just wanna be yours._

* * *

Johanna had never, ever, not even once, been nervous with a girl. Not even the first time she had sex. She was confident in her body, confident in her sexuality, and somehow confident that she possessed the necessary skills to achieve pleasure. It was this confidence that made her, in her estimation and the post-coital reviews of others, pretty damn good.

But she was terrified. The ride home had been quiet, save for the quiet mumble of the radio. The walk up the stairs to her room had been almost unbearable. Now here they were, staring at each other in the dim light of Johanna's room unable to start what they desperately wanted to.

"How does this normally go, hm?" Katniss asked, sitting down on the edge of Johanna's bed and giving it a few bounces. "You bring some idiot girl up here, whisper something in her ear and take her clothes off?" She eyed Johanna's music corner. "I bet you even put on mood music."

Johanna rolled her eyes and smirked. "First of all, it's just regular music. The mood is already there. Second of all, I'm not going to discuss other girls I've slept with tonight."

"Mood killer?" Katniss asked scathingly.

Katniss's hot tone made Johanna's thin patience wear out. If this is what she wanted, what she truly wanted, then she was going to have to check that attitude. Only one surefire way to shut her up. Johanna lunged forward and took Katniss's lips in an ardent kiss, trapping her in place by wrapping her arms around Katniss's torso. It only took a moment for Katniss to reply in kind, running her fingers experimentally through Johanna's locks of dark hair.

Johanna pushed them backward to her bed without preamble, cradling Katniss's fall as she moved on top of her. Her body was waging an unwinnable war between anxiousness and desire. Both of them were tumbling her stomach's contents like it was a clothes dryer. She steadied her breath as she looked down at the beautiful girl pinned beneath her.

This was not the first time another girl's back was flat against her blankets. This was not the first time she had grappled with pushing off socks and shoes. This was not the first time she had laid eyes on the naked midsection of another girl.

But this was the first time it had ever meant anything.

Johanna usually took the lead. The Fred Astaire to her bedmate's Ginger Rogers. Or more accurately, Fred Astaire to her bedmates acting as a table. She led the girl through the motions, pushing her back onto the pillow and making her toes curl in joy. Her partners were passive. But not Katniss. She refused to be undulated and taught how to move. As Johanna laced kisses across her clavicle Katniss sat up and pushed Johanna on to her back, reversing their positions and laying them the wrong way across the bed. Pillows were kicked off by stretching feet as Katniss took Johanna's hands in hers and pinned them at the foot of the bed, hanging off the edge slightly.

_Tonight you're mine completely. You gave your love so sweetly._

A low moan rippled up from the back of her throat as Katniss slid a nimble tongue across her neck and down toward her breasts. Katniss smiled against the taut skin. She was not going to let Johanna steer this night as she had with all her other lovers. Her hot breath bounced off Johanna's skin and she watched goosebumps rise to attention in its wake. She had waited a long time to hear Johanna pant with unmasked need.

Of course she harbored a deep reserve of jitters. She had never done anything sexual with a boy or a girl, so her intimate knowledge was limited to her own experience with herself. She squirmed Johanna out of her tight fitting jeans, her panties getting knotted with them and coming off as well. Her pupils dilated in the darkness to take in more light to see Johanna fully. She drank in the sight beneath her like a patron at an art museum; contemplative. Defined collarbone that rested above small, perfectly round breasts that were marred with small bite marks of Katniss's doing. A tense abdomen that rose and fell with ragged breaths. Tiny blondish hairs stuck to Johanna's belly from the sweat built between them over the last few minutes. A small patch of dark curly hair just above silken folds that made Katniss's breath catch in her throat. She traveled down muscular legs that tapered into feminine calves. The brunette placed small kisses up Johanna's calf muscle to her inner thigh, raking her teeth across the taut, smooth skin of Johanna's inner thigh.

"You are stunning," Katniss whispered reverently against Johanna's skin, taking a bit of her abdomen in her mouth and giving it a small hurt. She traveled upward to Johanna's mouth and captured it in another fervent kiss that instead of being backed by pure desire, was a delicate warp and weft of love and reverence.

_Tonight the light of love is in your eyes._

No one had ever looked at her, or spoke to her, with such adoration before. Johanna swallowed down the embarrassing emotion that balled up inside her throat as Katniss looked down at her. Gray eyes that were at once wholly unfocused but also intensely gazing down at her. Her newly freed hands were slowly traveling up Katniss's skirt; a skirt she was extremely glad Katniss had worn. It fell down her hips with ease, allowing Johanna a better glance at Katniss's oft-gazed-upon thighs that she adored.

She ran her hands along the olive-toned skin of Katniss's thighs, trailing them back up again as she curled her fingers in the elastic of Katniss's underwear. Looking in her eyes for consent and finding much more than that, she grinned as she pulled them down and flung them dismissively on to the floor beneath them.

Never had a girl looked so beautiful in the mix of a yellowish lamplight and a starkly bright white of the moon. Johanna closed her eyes and inhaled as deeply as possible. She wanted to imprint this moment in her memory as firmly as she could. The smell of Katniss's sex and natural perfume, the salty taste of her skin, the impossibly radiant beauty Katniss had, even in this nude, vulnerable state.

_But will you love me tomorrow?_

She bolted upright in bed and wrapped her arms around Katniss's back, digging her nails into the sweat-glazed skin and leaving hot red trails down the length of her twitching back muscles. Her own center was so close to Katniss's she could feel the heat rising between them. With one arm wrapped around her back, both to keep herself upright and hold Katniss in place, she placed her other hand near Katniss's entrance.

She had never asked permission before but it felt appropriate now. However, verbalizing that question was dying in her throat. Of course, she needn't ask. Katniss rocked her hips forward and a small noise of frustration came up from her throat. It was all Johanna needed to continue.

Hers and Katniss's gasps were remarkably similar in tone and tenacity at her first slow, tentative thrust inside her. The pleasure was shared as she moved inside her lover, marking Katniss's insides with her fingerprints. While Johanna wanted to look down at her hand that she could feel getting drenched in Katniss's arousal, she couldn't break her eyes from Katniss's face. Her forehead scrunched up as if she was in pain, but her lips parted and breathing out moans and encouragement that spelled nothing but absolute pleasure. A flash of white teeth gripping her lower lip tightly as Johanna began to quicken her pace.

She didn't want to waste the moonlight but she also wanted this to last as long as possible. The way Katniss's body began to tremor lightly and how rapidly her walls were constricting on her fingers she knew Katniss was close to spilling over the edge.

_Tonight with words unspoken, you say that I'm the only one._

As Katniss opened her eyes she saw how vehemently Johanna was staring at her. Any notion of self-consciousness was out the window because her brain was only functioning on a base level. She just squeezed her eyes back shut as her hands gripped Johanna's shoulders, her hips rolling faster and faster over Johanna's hand. Nothing had ever felt like this before. No memory of satisfaction had this vivid emotion and physical strength attached to it. This was new. This was amazing. If she could never have this again then she would choose to die in that moment.

Three words both broke her from her dark absorption and sent her tumbling over the edge of ecstasy. "Look at me." The moment her gray eyes met the loving brown ones staring up at her, all her senses exploded at once. She couldn't exactly pinpoint when but Johanna's name sprouted from her lips over and over again as her body sagged against the dark-haired girl's, breaths expelling out in arrhythmic bursts, her muscles contracting and shivering in the aftershocks of orgasm.

Johanna managed to push Katniss backward, holding her gently as she laid her against the bare mattress at the head of the bed. Pillows had been long strewn across the floor by now, forgotten about and discarded. She kissed her everywhere she saw small beads of sweat form - near her cheek, the cleft in her lips, the hollow of her neck, the space just before her ear.

She pushed down the throb of her own needs in favor of guiding Katniss through the comedown from pleasure. Her selflessness was unwarranted as Katniss apparently held an army of stamina hidden inside her. Her eyes flew open and she pulled their bodies together, crushing Johanna in a kiss that quite literally stole her breath.

_But will my heart be broken when the night meets the morning sun?_

Katniss again returned to her thought that she would not be some pawn in Johanna's sex game. They were equals, partners, lovers. Just because she carried less experience did not mean she carried less desire. There was one clear thought in her mind: She wanted to taste her. Grinning as she pulled away from Johanna's kiss she writhed beneath the girl until she was squarely beneath the other girl's thighs.

"Wha-?" Johanna managed to sneak out a sort of question in her sexually-clouded haze. "What are you doing?"

Katniss flattened her tongue against Johanna's thigh and slowly moved upward, collecting the spilled juice that flowed from Johanna. She felt the other girl shudder above her and she smiled smugly. "Just shut the fuck up and grab the headboard." Johanna's confusion was defogged by the swirl of Katniss's tongue inside her. On their own accord her palms slammed forward and grasped the wooden headboard, unintentionally doing as she was so provocatively bidden. She punished the frame with her iron grip, ignoring the creaky strain that sounded beneath her touch.

Her only sense was tactile. Katniss's tongue running laps inside her, her fingers clenched around Johanna's backside, digging little half-moon marks on the pale skin. Warm breath expelling over her insides as Katniss pulled back periodically to catch her breath. Her pelvis moved on its own, matching Katniss's thrusts. Between the crossfire of emotion and attraction she felt for Katniss it wasn't long before she cried out her girlfriend's name loudly, almost painfully, gripping the soft brown locks of hair between her moist fingers.

Unable to stand any more stimulation she swung her leg over and collapsed loudly onto her back next to Katniss. Comically she was turned on again as she watched Katniss wipe her mouth with the back of her hand. How someone could make the post-coital clean-up look attractive was amazing. But somehow, Katniss did.

_I'd like to know that your love is a love I can be sure of._

She wiped sweat from her forehead as she stared up at her ceiling, watching her fan move in lazy circles. It didn't seem to be doing any good because it was unbearably hot in the room, even with the fan going and the air conditioning on. She felt an arm snake beneath her and she lolled her head to the side to look at Katniss. She was always breathtaking but the afterglow of sex made her look downright ravishing. Rumpled hair, sweaty skin, a few pink marks along her neck and arms where Johanna had made little claims on her.

The arm underneath her had ulterior motives. She used it to push Johanna back on top of her. Johanna's hands went out to each of Katniss's sides, hovering above her quizzically. Still out of breath from orgasm she peered down at her girlfriend. "What are you doing?"

Katniss chuckled. "You know for someone who's such a supposed expert, you ask that an awful lot." Johanna bit the inside of her cheek to hide a smile as Katniss teased her. "What do you think, _brainless_? You get off - in a matter of speaking - after one go?" Katniss shook her head and took her lower lip between her teeth. Johanna held in a moan at the sensuous gesture. "We are not even close to done yet." In a surprisingly domineering move, she shoved Johanna down the length of her body, guiding her head toward her sex.

Johanna was of course more than happy to indulge.

* * *

The spent the rest of the night like that, exploring each other's bodies and making each other orgasm until Johanna regretfully fell asleep in between vigorous bouts of love-making. Katniss awoke first to the harsh sunlight streaming in through Johanna's perpetually open window. She needed to get shades, and badly. She used this quiet morning time to shift on to her side and watch Johanna sleep.

She was face-down on the mattress, her head absorbed into the pillow and her hair flared over the plush. Katniss took the moment to enjoy the concave and convex curves of Johanna's back. She traced the small shoulder blades with the tip of her finger, dipping it into the divots of muscle that surrounded it. She decided that Johanna's back was her favorite part of Johanna. Well, maybe not her _favorite _but definitely in her top three. The flex of muscle and strength of bone was unusually attractive to Katniss. She restrained the urge to line the wavelengths of Johanna's back with her tongue.

That could wait until she was awake. She rolled back on to her spine and pushed her hands underneath her head. The night before played back in her mind's eye in stunning technicolor. Her most favorite moment, of which there were several, were the small moments of quiet as the regained their breath.

In one particular moment she remembered looking at Johanna just before she fell asleep. She was staring straight back at her with unwavering emotion. She tucked Katniss's wild hair behind her ear and Katniss could smell the faint scent of her own sex on Johanna's palms. It swelled with her a pleasurable mixture of desire and possessiveness to smell herself on Johanna. But then Johanna spoke and moved all of that from her mind.

_So tell me now, and I won't ask again._

"I love you." Her voice rang as clear as a bell in the damp room, filling Katniss's ears and infiltrating her mind. They had never said it to each other. She felt it. She had felt it the day they met, but they had never said it. Somehow saying it seemed to put a wax seal on their love letter.

Katniss didn't want to relent to the tears in her eyes so she surged forward and kissed Johanna. She tried to push the feelings for her with her tongue inside Johanna's mouth instead of stuck awkwardly inside her own. She pulled away and was endeared by the hopeful but cautious look in Johanna's eyes.

She's waiting for you to say it, Katniss thought to herself. Katniss was taking a gamble, just as Johanna had done earlier in her confession, that Johanna's admission of love was genuine and not rooted in the delirium of sex.

"I love you too, Jo."

_But will you love me tomorrow?_

* * *

Author's Note: Thank you all for continuing to follow this story and letting me know how you feel. It's very late and I have to work in a few hours so I'm keeping this short. You're all wonderful and I hope you enjoyed this chapter! If there are typos or random words wrong I apologize. I will beta tomorrow and fix anything crazy but I am exhausted.

Music: "Criminal" by Fiona Apple, "I Wanna Be Yours" by Arctic Monkeys, and "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" by whoever you want. Carole King's version (as the original songwriter I appreciate her take) is my favorite, but the Shirelle's original is amazing, Amy Winehouse's recent (2011) version is hauntingly beautiful. Shawn Colvin, The Four Seasons, Ben E. King. Go! Go listen to it and be bowled over by it's simplistic but richly orchestrated songwriting gold.


	8. Chapter 8

_I want a Sunday kind of love. A love to last passed Saturday night._

Katniss was unsure of when she had fallen back asleep. She remembered waking up and musing on Johanna's enticing back muscles, but sometime after that she had fallen back into a dreamless rest. For one of the first nights in a long time she wasn't awoken by the crunchy metal nightmares that plagued her since her father's death. Instead she dreamt of nothing at all, just lightness and warmth.

The side of the bed that had been previously covered with Johanna's prone form was now an empty space with a few dents and rumpled sheets. Momentarily confused she got out of the bed and was greeted by her own nakedness. Johanna's bedroom window was wide open but their house was enshrouded in trees so there was no chance of being spotted by neighbors. She wasn't the type of girl that slept in the nude but clothes seemed unnecessary when she and Johanna just kept taking them off all night.

She rummaged around Johanna's room and managed to come up with a pair of Johanna's athletic shorts and one of her band shirts. Being a few inches taller the shirt didn't quite meet the elastic waistband of the shorts but Katniss shrugged. She and Johanna were beyond hiding parts of their body from each other. Every inch of her skin had been mapped by Johanna's persistent mouth.

_And I'd like to know it's more than love at first sight. And I wanna Sunday kind of love._

Johanna wished she had some semblance of culinary skill. What was more attractive than someone cooking you breakfast after a long night of extremely satisfying sex? Unfortunately, her only skills were music and sex and neither of those things were going to make some kind of magical ambrosia for Katniss to consume when she awoke. She eyed the stove with distrust; last time she had attempted to make scrambled eggs she had scrambled just about everything on the counter instead of the eggs. She lacked both the patience and skill required for cooking.

Her music played softly downstairs as to not disturb the girl slumbering peacefully in her bed. When she had risen the picture next to her had nearly choked her with emotion. Katniss had been sleeping soundly, totally spent from the previous night (and some of the early morning), and looked wonderful. Her hair in messy ringlets over her shoulders, her nose and forehead scrunched together cutely, one leg over the comforter as the other lay beneath it. Not very many things brought her to tears, but that nearly did.

Not wanting to have Katniss wake up to her melodrama she had gone downstairs to begin making them breakfast. About the fourth time she looked in their refrigerator she realized her chivalrous quest to wake Katniss to the sweet aroma of baked goods and the savory smell of eggs was for naught. She couldn't cook to save her life. If her mother didn't prepare breakfast then typically she dined on something delicious and coated in sugar floating around in milk.

Unbeknownst to Johanna Katniss had arrived in the doorway, watching the shorter girl move slowly from cabinet to cabinet. And while she looked downright edible in her oversized sweatshirt and tiny cotton shorts, it was her voice that stopped Katniss dead in her tracks. She was _singing_. Her voice had a high, light tone to it that was mismatched to the slow jazz that was playing, but sounded beautiful. She tried not to make any noise and disturb the wonderful performance in front of her. Johanna's hips lightly swaying to the drawling beat, her voice carefree and in tune.

The door behind her creaked open and Johanna spun around and instinctively grabbed a frying pan with both hands. Her mother took one glance at Johanna - poised hilariously to take down an opponent with a comically large frying pan - and burst into loud peals of laughter. Johanna let out a loud breath and placed the frying pan back down on the stove.

"Were you going to use the frying pan on an intruder?" Polly asked between laughs, setting down her duffel bag near the door. Johanna folded her arms across her large "Panem High School" sweatshirt and glared at her mother. "At least you'd get some use out of it."

"Har har," Johanna mocked, not moving from the stove. She hadn't expected her mother home until much later in the day. She wasn't necessarily embarrassed that Katniss was upstairs; her mother was absurdly fond of Katniss. However, they had a close relationship and Polly knew all about Johanna's trepidation regarding having sex with her. She'd want to talk about it, or at least voice her opinion on the matter.

Polly didn't approve of Johanna's side hobby of entertaining other girls. She believed Johanna was mature enough to handle sexual situations but she found the behavior self-destructive. Each sequential girl only seemed to curl Johanna inside herself even more. Until Katniss. Something about that girl seemed to unfurl Johanna from her coil of anger and solitude. Even the song playing - an old Etta James hit Polly hadn't heard since she was little - was happier. Overall Johanna was happier than she had ever seen her.

_I wanna love that's on the square, can't seem to find somebody... somebody to care._

Johanna suddenly became cognizant of Katniss's presence in the doorway and her anxiety level rose. Her mahogany eyes darted from her mother to Katniss with the quickness of an alert rabbit. The brunette was frozen in place in between the two rooms and self-consciously looked down at her outfit. The ill-fitting clothes clearly were not her own and the implication of how she came to wear them was as plain as day.

"Hi Mrs. Mason," Katniss mumbled politely, luckily not forgetting her manners in the same way she forgot her clothes. "Polly," she quickly corrected, remembering the hundred or so times she had asked Katniss to call her by her first name.

Polly compressed her lips together tightly to prevent from all-out smirking at the awkward silence that fell between them. She fought the desire to stay in the room and prolong the tensity of the situation and instead grabbed her bag from the floor. She looked to Johanna. "That explains the Etta James," she said with a smirk before walking down the corridor toward her first-floor bedroom in the back of the house.

Johanna looked to Katniss and finally smiled after an eternity of holding her lips in a straight line. "Mornin'."

Katniss's lips grew wide in a lazy smile. "Morning yourself." She moved forward and wrapped her arms around her girlfriend's waist, holding her tightly and nuzzling into the softness of Johanna's sweatshirt. She inhaled the sweet smell of her, relaxing as Johanna curled her arms around her as well. "You're still here, hm? Didn't try to run out on me?"

Her teasing tone was absorbed into Johanna's sweatshirt but the shorter girl slapped her gently on her backside. "Hilarious." Katniss moved around to face the other girl and kissed her softly. She eyed the array of packages and cooking utensils strewn around the countertops with a slightly raised eyebrow. Johanna followed her line of sight and pursed her lips. "I was going to try and make you breakfast."

Katniss smirked. "Is that what you do with all your lovers?" Johanna's eyes darkened considerably and Katniss immediately regretted her little jab. Truth be told she was no longer angry about Johanna's former lifestyle. Any doubts she might have held were promptly erased by Johanna's words and actions the night prior.

Johanna's body stiffened. While seeing Katniss in her clothes had made her inexplicably warm, it had also filled her chest with a sense of foreboding. When her eyes closed she could see Cashmere doing the same thing. Parading around in her clothes on a lazy Sunday morning while their families were at church, listening to her records while Johanna sat on her bed. But those nights weren't like the one she just had. Those nights were merely games of pushing each other and doing as much to hurt the other without leaving a mark. There was no victor in those games._  
_

Last night she told Katniss she loved her. Their sex had fishtailed from passionate to gentle, from breathless pleas to screams of pleasure. And when she said she loved her, it was true. God, was it true. The way she felt about Katniss no one person should feel about another. Wholeness. Possessiveness. Need. Other words she either couldn't or was not prepared to identify. She was only seventeen, for Christ's sake. The mere concept of "the one" seemed like something on teenagers in young adult novels felt. Nobody _actually _found their perfect match on the first go around. Right?

_I'm on a lonely road that leads to nowhere. _

The long pregnant pause was enough to swell Katniss's lungs with regret. Without Johanna knew it or not, her eyes were retreating even if she was standing still. "Hey, Jo," Katniss whispered, placing her hand on Johanna's cheek. "I'm sorry, that was uncalled for."

But those deep brown eyes didn't move from the tiled floor. "I think you should go home." Johanna didn't like the sound of her own voice. It was strange and disconnected like the disembodied voice of an announcer over the loudspeakers at school.

"What?" Katniss backed away from her and settled her eyes on Johanna's face. Her normally expressive mouth and bright eyes looked drawn and forlorn. A far cry from the wicked grins and winces of pleasure from just a few short hours ago. "Why?"

Johanna moved away from her and toward the kitchen window. She peered outside to the soft grass of her front lawn waving back and forth in the wind. With renewed conviction in her false premise she turned back to Katniss. "This is just too fast." Finally her eyes met the disbelieving gray ones staring back at her. The anxiety in her chest was doubled as she saw the heartbreak evident in the irises of the other girl. "I just..."

"Are you scared?" Katniss asked, interrupting Johanna's lame excuses. She didn't possess experience in relationships, but for that matter, neither did Johanna. However fear was as present as color in Johanna's eyes. "You must be because this is not too fast."

Johanna raised her eyebrow in challenge. "And you've just settled that for both of us?"

"Because I've felt this way about you since the day we met. You felt it, too. As for the sex..." Katniss cleared her throat to hide her slight embarrassment. "That wasn't too fast because we both know you've moved a lot faster than that."

Katniss was right. Of course she was right. But Johanna had made a decision that she wanted to stick with. She wanted space. No, she _needed_ space. In reality, she wanted to march back upstairs and make Katniss cry out her name until she was hoarse but the fear of this new level to their relationship was far too frightening. As her mouth opened to respond Katniss took a step toward her. "You're scared."

Her voice was soft but it felt like a dagger of insinuation and Johanna crossed her arms across her chest. "Fuck you."

Katniss took an experimental step toward her as if she were approaching an undetonated dirty bomb. "I understand, okay? This is a big step for us. But that's part of the thrill of this, right? The blind free-fall?" She took Johanna's hands in her own and held them tightly. She hoped that maybe if she held on tightly enough Johanna wouldn't slip away like she seemed to be. "But it's not scary because you're not alone."

Her hand came up to rest on the side of Johanna's face. The shorter girl instinctively leaned into her touch and her eyes flitted closed. "If you really want me to go, I'll go. I just really want to stay." Katniss hoped the slight tinge of desperation in her voice was not as obvious as it sounded to her.

It was a long time before Johanna spoke again. For a while she just stared into Katniss's eyes, waiting and trying to understand. Why was she being so patient? Johanna wanted to self-destruct a little. Why were people designed to hate themselves? Or was it just some of her father leftover inside of her? Was it writ in her DNA to be so masochistic? Do perfect things need to be corrupted in order to appreciate how wonderful they are?

"I don't know how to do this," came Johanna's slow, careful reply. It was as close to the truth as she was going to get with all of these questions buzzing around her brain.

To her surprise Katniss laughed and leaned down, kissing her lovingly. It was a kiss that said what Katniss didn't: _I know you don't but it's okay._ She went to pull away but Johanna pressed their foreheads together and captured her lips again, more hungrily this time. Katniss was surprised but fully returned the kiss, still moving her fingers against Johanna's by their sides. Johanna's tongue swabbed her lower lip and plunged into her mouth.

"Johanna I have to go to the store and -" Polly stopped abruptly as the two girls flew so far apart it was as if lightning had struck between them. She didn't suppress her laughter and put one of her hands over her eyes. "Oh the horror! My precious baby!" She took her hand down and laughed, giving Katniss a playful nudge with her hip. "I'm going to the store for a few hours. You girls behave yourself, okay? Don't give Mr. Greenstone next door a heart attack."

Polly walked across the kitchen and kissed Johanna on the forehead before departing. While she was teasing, she certainly didn't want old Mr. Greenstone from next door to see two teenaged girls making out in her kitchen. He was already with one foot in the grave and she didn't want to be the one to push the other in.

* * *

_The gates of Heaven must be open, I think I saw an angel walk by._

Katniss shivered as she felt a pair of lips brush against the outer shell of her ear. "Reading something good?" the voice asked in a low drawl. The library was practically a ghost town on the last day of school, since half the school's population wasn't even in attendance. Her second-to-last class was supposed to meet in the library but no one had bothered to show up but herself and Delly Cartwright. Delly went off somewhere to find Peeta, leaving Katniss alone in the room. She tucked herself into a corner with a novel and decided to wait out the forty minutes.

Johanna was supposed to be in one of her classes but she had ditched it when Katniss's text had come through to her phone telling her she was alone in the library. The long wooden tables in the back were usually put aside from group studying but Katniss sat alone, engrossed in the book. She sat down next to her girlfriend, raking her eyes along Katniss's bare legs up to her maroon pleated skirt.

"It's okay, it's about this boy who survives a -" Her words were arrested in her throat when she felt the wandering but dedicated fingers of Johanna trailing up her inner thigh. Her hand whipped underneath the table and she winced painfully as her knuckles caught the edge of the table. "What are you doing?" she whispered.

_I heard a blind man screamin', say, "There goes a sight for my sore eyes."_

Johanna grinned with a mischievous glint in her eye. She leaned forward on the table and rested her face on her palm. Her other hand snaked underneath Katniss's skirt and brushed against the lace fabric of her underwear. Katniss let out a gasp and promptly smacked her hand over her mouth. Her gray eyes squinted toward her girlfriend as Johanna slowly dipped her fingers inside Katniss's entrance, her brown eyes steady and unmoving.

Katniss slammed her palm against the table and Johanna raised an eyebrow. "Shh."

"Don't you fucking tell me to shush when you're trying to fu-" Katniss's whisper through gritted teeth was cut off as Johanna slowly eased inside her. Against her will and better judgement she widened her sitting position. A catlike smirk widened on Johanna's lips as she watched her girlfriend try and restrain herself. There was something sinful about wielding this power over Katniss. The thrill of perhaps being caught, the naughtiness of desecrating a library, the pleasure in getting another girl off. She liked seeing the surrender on Katniss's face. It's powerful and arousing to have someone's trust.

_You should be locked up, pretty girl, in my bedroom with me._

Betraying her mind, Katniss's body began to move slowly with the gentle pressure of Johanna's fingers inside of her. Along with other pleasurable sensations, the heightened anxiety of someone seeing or hearing her made Katniss's stomach flip. Johanna didn't seem bothered. Matter of fact, she seemed downright calm. It was almost angering her how unfazed Johanna was by how crazy she was making her.

To make it worse Johanna moved her mouth next to Katniss's ear and spoke in a timbre about ten octaves lower than Johanna's deceptively high speaking voice. "Do you like this?" Katniss scrunched her nose and lips angrily and gave her a curt nod. "Do you want me to stop?"

Katniss shook her head once fervently. "No." Her voice came out in a quiet croak.

"Say it. Say you don't want me to stop." All of Johanna's power plays with Cashmere began bubbling to the surface, but this was infinitely more fun. Katniss wasn't someone she wanted to ruin, she was someone she wanted to corrupt just a little. Put a rumple in her skirt, not a gash on her skin.

She felt the heat of Katniss's glare on her almost as tangibly as the heat from between her legs. Her hand chafed against the material of Katniss's lace panties as she continued to clandestinely thrust inside her. "Don't stop." Without a word Johanna slinked off the chair and dropped to her knees. Katniss's gray eyes went comically wide as Johanna looped two fingers around her panties and drew them slowly down to her calves. She wrapped her hands around her backside and urged Katniss forward to the edge of the chair.

"Say please," Johanna ordered in a deceptively sweet tone from beneath her.

Katniss groaned quietly. "_Please_ don't stop."

Not willing to dissent Katniss moved forward and parted her thighs as far apart as they would go, considering the restriction of her undergarments against her legs. Her arms outstretched over the table as Johanna's breath blew against her core. She was sure she would combust at any moment if Johanna didn't touch her. But when her soft tongue dipped inside her she let out a high-pitched groan that made Johanna still her movements for a second.

"Oh don't you fucking dare," Katniss threatened, reaching one hand underneath the table to push Johanna's mouth against her. She heard a short chuckle before Johanna went back to drawing designs inside her. The hum of her own pleasure drowned out the approaching steps of a shoe against the thin carpets. Katniss's head whipped up as she met the bespeckled, tired eyes of the librarian.

Katniss tried to make her countenance as passive as possible but with Johanna on her knees beneath her, flicking her tongue against Katniss's nub. "Is everything okay back here Miss Everdeen?" he asked, pushing his glasses up on to the bridge of his nose.

She nodded excessively. "Everything's fine," she replied in a high-pitched squeak. Johanna paused her movements when she heard they were not alone. However, the urge to push Katniss a little further made her a little devious. She slid her tongue back inside her girlfriend and quietly moved around her walls. "I was just, um, reading this book." Katniss picked up the novel. "It got a _little," _her voice went high as Johanna sucked on her clit. She tried to squeeze her thighs together to stop Johanna, but her strong hands gripped her thighs and kept them apart. "A little emotional. I'll try to keep it down."

The man chuckled and peered at the novel. He nodded in understanding, clasping his large, soft hands in front of him. "Oh yes, that's quite an emotional story. A coming of age tale if there was any. I have no doubts that it resonated with you." He waited for Katniss to respond but she was physically unable. She felt the oncoming swell of orgasm begin to trickle up her nerves. Her body began to radiate heat and shake because of Johanna's ministrations beneath the table.

_So we can do the same thing that Adam did under that old apple tree._

Johanna was relentless in her lapping at her folds, and once she heard the waning footsteps of the librarian she pushed forward and sucked hard on Katniss's cul-de-sac between her legs and felt the girl clench hard against her tongue. Katniss's head dropped to the table on top of her crossed arms as Johanna very slowly outlined her center with her tongue before pushing her panties back up her legs.

The darker-haired girl emerged from underneath the table with a winning smile, lips and chin unabashedly glistening with Katniss's arousal. She licked her lips as Katniss adjusted her garments and shot her a glare. Regretfully she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and raised an eyebrow toward her girlfriend. "That was so fucking hot."

Katniss rolled her eyes but the appreciative glint was in her eyes. Johanna sat back down next to her, smelling of her natural perfume and the sweet tang of sex. "Yes it's one of my fantasies to have you go down on me while I look at Mr. Verne."

"Whatever, you _clearly _loved it." Johanna's natural arrogance somehow was adroit enough to perversely turn Katniss on. She guessed it was part of her overall allure - mostly that she could get beneath Johanna's hardened veneer and bring out the vulnerable girl beneath with her tongue. As she evidently proved, Johanna possessed the same capabilities.

Katniss again rolled back her eyes. "What are your plans this summer?"

Johanna shrugged. "Same as always. Finnick and I whore ourselves out as DJs for parties and weddings and shit. I work with my mom during the day." She shrugged and looked over to Katniss. "And you? What does the Everdeen clan do during the summers?"

"Come here to Panem," Katniss said. "But since that's out of the question, I have no idea." She hadn't really thought about the summer much. She figured she'd have to get a job since lazing around all summer with Gale in the woods was out of the question. He had gotten a job at the town over from theirs as a stock boy. Unfortunately Katniss couldn't pin down a skill that she could possibly apply to a real job. She could write and shoot a bow and arrow. Not exactly a lot of people clamoring for a well-written archer.

"You can always be our roadie," Johanna supplied with a grin. "Help us set up and break down. Bend over and pick up equipment..." Johanna trailed off as she openly gawked at Katniss's behind that was firmly set in her seat. She bit against her lip and Katniss smirked.

"I'll consider it. And how will you pay me?"

Johanna leaned over and stroked Katniss's thigh in a similar fashion that she had earlier. "Oh I could think of a few things."

Katniss nodded and kissed her, giving her lower lip an aroused tug. "I bet you could."

* * *

Author's Note: Happy Fourth of July all my American readers! I hope everyone had a safe and wonderful Fourth and continue to have fun this weekend! All my readers overseas, I hope your Friday was fun-filled as well. Not exactly chock full of hot dogs and freedom, but good. ;)

Music: "A Sunday Kind of Love" by Etta James and "What Kind of Woman Is This?" by Buddy Guy. If you can't get laid to Buddy Guy, you're doing it wrong.

- TJ.


	9. Chapter 9

Mrs. Everdeen hummed quietly to herself as she stirred a pot of stew on her stove. The sweet scent of plums danced with the savory aroma of the lamb swimming inside the metal pot. The humming inside her mind was drowning out by Primrose's off-key piano fingering of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy." She appreciated Johanna's efforts in teaching Primrose the piano, but the girl lacked the musical prowess of her father. The ivories clunked out of rhythm and bounced off the freshly painted walls.

Her older daughter came thundering down the stairs and whipped quickly into the kitchen. Her gray eyes, identical to her father's, were large as she inhaled the smell of the dinner being cooked. Recognition as well as pleasure were evident in her gaze as she walked over toward her mother and peeked into the large pot. "You're making my favorite."

Mrs. Everdeen raised a frayed blonde eyebrow toward her daughter. "You said you were staying home for dinner so I thought I'd take another stab at this." The previous attempt to cook Katniss's plum and lamb stew had turned dinner into a pot that had to be thrown out, frustration and a boxed pizza.

Katniss's face briefly registered fear before she spoke again. "I promised Jo I'd go to her club tonight to see her perform." The story had actually gone something more like Katniss begging Johanna to let her come and watch her band play. After a lot of cajoling and several interruptive but persuasive kisses, Johanna had finally relented.

Her mother stopped stirring the stew and placed the sticky wooden spoon on the edge of the counter. She turned her body to face her daughter and crossed her arms over her chest. "Katniss. You promised your sister and me you would stay home tonight. Prim was very much looking forward to spending time with her sister whom she barely sees."

Katniss scoffed and backed a step away, leaning against the dinner table. "Barely sees? I brought her to school every day."

"And school ended three weeks ago and we haven't seen anything but your shadow since then."

The young brunette immediately became defensive. "So I'm not allowed to see my girlfriend?"

"I never said that," Mrs. Everdeen countered in a calm tone, reaching behind her to hold her palms on the edge of the counter. "I'm just saying you made a promise. One that I think Johanna would understand if you kept."

"But Mom," Katniss said in a small whine, "Jo never lets me see her sing or play. I finally convinced her to let me in there and now I'm going to stand her up? Because Prim wants to play Clue with me? We can play Clue anytime."

"And you can see Johanna any time," Mrs. Everdeen replied, keeping her voice even. Katniss was a fairly patient child but every so often her father's petulant streak awoke inside her. She'd get the same darkened gray eyes and narrow them, holding her position like a Greek phalanx until the other side relented. "You have spent every day with her since school ended. I think maybe you ought to have a little time apart."

Katniss looked as if she had scalded her. The mere thought of being forced away from Johanna like a thorn in the bottom of her foot. "Are you grounding me?" Katniss hadn't been grounded a day in her life. She had never done anything worth being punished for. The look in her mother's eyes seemed to indicate the answer was yes.

"Don't make me force you to stay with your family." The seemingly never-ending chasm of patience Mrs. Everdeen possessed began to run dry. Not without reason, of course. Katniss and Johanna had spent nearly every day together since becoming a couple. While she harbored no resentment toward Johanna - in fact she greatly enjoyed Johanna's company and positive influence on Prim and Katniss - things were moving a little fast. Katniss felt far too seriously about her.

This was her first relationship, her first love. The first always seems to cut a little deeper than the rest. Your skin isn't hardened to love yet so you allow that person to run you right through. She anticipated heartbreak for Katniss if she didn't temper their relationship now. "I can't believe you're being serious right now. You can't _force _me to stay home."

Mrs. Everdeen sighed. "Katniss, I don't want to punish you for wanting to spend time with your girlfriend. I'm asking you to be reasonable. Johanna plays at the jazz club every week, as you've said. She will be there next week. And you can go next week, when you haven't already made a promise."

Katniss crossed her arms over her chest, jutting out her hip. "And if I go anyway?"

"Then I will speak to Polly Mason and you and Johanna will see less of each other. I'm sure she'd like to see more of her daughter as well."

Her daughter's mouth went agape. "I can't believe you. Because I want to go out this _one _night, I'm being punished. You can't control how much time I spend with her. That's not fair."

"Life's not fair," her mother shot back angrily. Gray eyes enlarged in surprise. Her mother never took a cross tone with her, ever. She felt like she should back down, the instinct of being overwhelmed coming from days of hunting. She and Gale would traverse the woods and come across something too large to take down and they'd have to retreat. But Katniss felt her blood boiling inside her and she didn't back down. Mrs. Everdeen's countenance softened. "I know you want to see her. But relationships aren't about spending every moment together. It's enjoying the moments you do have. Your father and I didn't see each other every day."

"And now he's dead. Don't you wish you had?" The slap that resounded through the room made the off-kilter piano playing from the other room cease. Katniss's face stung, burning red hot not only from the hit but also from the anger and the humiliation. Katniss couldn't even remember the last time her mother had hit her. Maybe she never had.

She sniffled and grabbed her messenger bag from the kitchen chair and slung it over her shoulder. Soundlessly she left the room, ignoring her sister's inquisitive and terrified expression on her way out. Gray eyes looked across the yard glossily toward Gale, who was sitting in the driver's seat of his hand-me-down pick-up truck. Spots of rust dotted the washed out navy exterior, a spray of dirt on the back panel near the wheels. It rumbled against the loose gravel driveway noisily as Katniss drew near.

"Hey Catnip you ready to go?" His arm slung on the outside of his driver's side door, as is holding on to the door to keep it in place. Suffice to say, Gale was very excited about Katniss's relationship with Johanna. He had known Johanna his whole life and admired her bravery and pluck. Also, Gale didn't have to worry about some idiot boy getting Katniss pregnant or mistreating her. It assuaged his overprotective nature.

Katniss nodded and climbed into the passenger's seat. She buckled the seat belt and stared forward out the windshield at the front of the Hawthorne's garage door. A seldom-used but very worn basketball hoop drooped over the top, the net worn away years ago from the constant "dunking" of the boys. Gale registered her silence with a nod of his head and backed out of the driveway, making his way toward the neighboring town.

Gale and Katniss had a relationship rooted in family, but they connected because they were similar souls. Gale was quiet, contemplative, sometimes explosive in his personality if you got him on the right topic, but could communicate just as easily without words. Sometimes they'd spend entire days together without speaking. He wasn't bothered that Katniss was idly staring out the window. He was bothered that she looked nearly on the verge of tears. Crying was not something Katniss did often. Gale had only seen it about twice in his entire life, both at funerals. She wasn't the type of girl that cried when her feelings were hurt or when she watched something sad. She didn't cry when she saw _Bambi _or _The Notebook_. She didn't cry when she fell from a tree branch twelve feet up from the ground. She had a hard shell.

_Take me out tonight where there's music and there's people who are young and are alive._

"Do you want to talk about it?" Gale asked as they neared the club, idling at a red light. The engine shook the cabin as they sat there. Katniss shook her head. "Is it Jo?" Katniss shook her head once more. "Good."

In spite of herself Katniss smiled a little. As if there was anything Gale could do if it _was_ Johanna. He pulled to a stop in front of the old club, offering Katniss a smile. "Thanks for the ride," she said quietly, struggling with the door handle before the door popped open and she jumped out of the lifted truck. "Jo will give me a ride home."

"All right, Catnip. If you need anything call me." Gale's engine roared to life as he sped away toward the interstate. Katniss turned to face the building's facade and tried to steady her emotions. She didn't want to walk into Johanna's dressing room a wreck and distract her. She smoothed out her pleated purple skirt; it was Johanna's favorite that she wore. Not only because it was Johanna's favorite color, but also because it came above mid-thigh and was the shortest skirt Katniss owned.

_Driving in your car because I never want to go home. Because I haven't got one anymore._

The loud noise of drums and brass instruments blared into Katniss's face as she entered the club. Bogey gave her a hearty wave from his station behind the counter. Katniss waved back and strode toward him as he clapped his hands. "Well my my, Miss Everdeen, don't you look like a picture?" He took off his newsboy cap, revealing his cropped gray hair as he placed the plaid material over his heart. "I don't know if I should let you back there. Lookin' like that Jo-annie may never come out of that dressing room."

Katniss smirked at the adorable nickname that she was _sure _Johanna didn't want her to know. "Don't you worry, I'll make sure she's out on time. She's in her room?" He nodded and smiled, about to speak again until his attention was brought to the door by another friendly patron calling his name. Katniss made her way toward the back of the club, walking down the familiar hallway until she got to the unmarked dressing room.

She knocked hard as she heard the muffled but loud strains of music coming from inside. A smile appeared on her face as she heard Johanna's impatient grumble on the other side of the door. She placed one hand on her hip and slid the other up the door frame, looking as "come-hither" as she could. Her light cardigan rode up her stomach, exposing the tanned skin of her abdomen.

"What do you -" Johanna cut herself off as she took in the tempting sight of Katniss. Chocolate eyes dragged from high-heel to hairline and without much conscious thought she wet her lips. The corners of her mouth lifted up into a smirk. Katniss had a way of making even the most mundane of outfits look sinfully sexy. The unassuming way she wore them, the perfect fit of her hips against the fabric; Johanna was sure there was not another human being alive who possessed that talent.

"Oh gee whiz, Johanna Mason. I'm just your biggest fan!" Katniss drawled at the doorway, pretending to fan herself with her hand. Johanna stood silent, her smirking visage allowing Katniss to continue. "If I could just have one minute of your time." Johanna beckoned Katniss toward her with a curled finger, shutting the door behind her once Katniss entered. Her eyes stared hungrily at her skirt until Katniss came up close to her and lifted her gaze. Gray eyes traveled the length of Johanna's outfit - a pair of skintight leather pants, a roughed up pair of Doc Martens on her feet and a forest green button-down blouse that was rolled up to her elbows. "You look so hot."

"So do you, darlin'." Katniss blushed a little. She loved when Johanna called her that. She got this bit of a country drawl in her voice and it was super attractive. She brought her lips to the other girl and kissed her with closed lips, but applied a lot of pressure. Johanna slowly ran her tongue along Katniss's lower lip before the taller girl pulled away.

_Oh please don't drop me home. Because it's not my home, it's their home. And I'm welcome no more._

She flickered her gray eyes down to the other girl and smiled. "I can't wait to get you out of those pants later."

Johanna chuckled, weaving her fingers through Katniss's hair and pulling her in for another kiss. "That's going to be quite a feat. Fortunately for me," her hands traveled down Katniss's body until she met with the hem of the skirt. She trailed her fingertips upward until she met the lacy edge of Katniss's panties on her hips, "You made this pretty easy for me."

"Nuh uh," Katniss countered, swatting Johanna's wandering hand away from her pelvis. Johanna gave her a petulant pout and Katniss grinned. "Not until after your show."

"But Katniss," Johanna outright whined and stomped her foot. Katniss barely restrained the amused grin on her face as her girlfriend crossed her arms over her chest. "I need to nimble up my fingers in preparation." A mischievous smirk appeared on Johanna's face as she tried to grapple with Katniss's skirt and was swatted away again.

"I agree, but I think you need to 'nimble up your fingers' on the piano in preparation for _me_," Katniss replied, wrapping her arms around Johanna's waist and pulling their bodies close. She enjoyed the fit of their bodies together. Her hip bones settled on top of Johanna's pelvis, her thighs nestled against Johanna's, her breasts just barely grazing the other girl's. A perfect fit.

Johanna's pout finally melted into a grin and she nodded, lifting her head up to capture her girlfriend's lips in another kiss. "Deal."

_To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die. And if a ten ton truck kills the both of us, to die by your side well the pleasure, the privilege is mine._

* * *

Katniss found her seat in the audience; a specially reserved table with a flute of champagne and a small placard with her name on it. It was near the front but off to the side in front of the piano which was to the right of the stage. A few of the patrons cast her some skeptical looks, clearly miffed by her young age and great seat. Katniss did as she did every day in school - ignored the stares and hoped to see Johanna soon. Her gaze went around the room until she hit an unmistakeable sight: Effie Trinket. Her bright purple wig made her stand out among the other patrons, as did her atrocious make-up.

Bogey, now dressed sharply in a three-piece suit came on stage to a light round of applause. "Welcome Ladies and Gentlemen to the highlight of the week. These guys and gals have been giving us those old tunes we love with a new flair every week. And givin' some new tunes some old flair! And maybe it's my old age talkin' but every week it sounds fresh!" The crowd gave him a lighthearted laugh and he in return gave them a short nod. "It's my pleasure, my privilege and my duty as owner to introduce The Tributes!"

Katniss's eyes stayed on Effie as the band came on the stage to a loud round of claps and hollers from the audience. Effie seemed particularly excited so Katniss followed her eyes until she saw him. Mr. Abernathy. He picked up the large guitar on the stand near the far side of the stage and wrapped it around his back, giving a small wave to the audience. Two men emerged from behind the large red curtain and picked up a saxophone and a trumpet each, testing out the valves and buttons without making a noise._  
_

Johanna entered silently from the right, sitting down at the piano and taking a swig from a bottle of water the stage crew had set up on top of her large, black piano. A man Katniss didn't recognize sat behind the small drum kit and a tall woman stood behind Haymitch and a large double-bass. The blonde man nodded and the band began to play to the delight of the crowd.

_There's just one place for me, near you. It's like heaven to be, near you._

Katniss couldn't help but stare at Johanna. The way her fingers moved effortlessly across the keys, alternating between tinkling and slamming them with such ease it looked like she could do it with her eyes closed. The brunette lifted the champagne glass to her lips and sipped, letting the bubbly liquid slide down her throat and warm her belly. She remembered back to when she was first falling for Johanna, watching her hands manipulate the clay in pottery class. She recalled the way Johanna had played her father's old piano with the same ease and focus that her father had. Maybe that was partially why she was so drawn to Johanna. Her determination, her musical talents, her short temper, it was all reminiscent of her father. The Freudian implications of that aside, Katniss knew she had never felt for anyone what she felt for Johanna.

Her mind went back to what her mother had said. _I think maybe you ought to have a little time apart. _How could she when every moment she spent away from Johanna felt like a part of her was missing? Was it truly because this was her first love? Katniss wasn't sure how anyone could tell the difference between first love and true love because they felt the same.

_Times when we're apart I can't face my heart._

She couldn't imagine loving anyone they way she loved Johanna. And the other girl felt the same. As her fingers danced across the piano she looked from her sheet music - which she barely looked at anymore - to Katniss, giddily watching her from the front seat. The nerves that had plagued her every day until that night dissipated into thin air as she saw the loving way she was staring at her. How wonderful it felt to be swept into those gray eyes.

Her mother had warned her not to get too involved with Katniss. Her own experience of marrying her high school sweetheart and watching his life unravel before them had tainted her perception of young love. She hadn't gone so far as to announce it as foolishness, but she heavily implied it. Johanna had taken offense at first, obviously, at the affront to her feelings and her logic. The more she thought about it though, the more sense her mother made. They were still seventeen. Eighteen in a few months, but on the tail of that "landmark" birthday was the inevitable: college. She had already begun preparing her entrance material for Julliard in New York.

_Say you'll never stray more than just two lips away._

They never talked about where they were going for college. Katniss was smart so Johanna assumed she'd be applying to colleges all over the country, maybe even some overseas. Johanna had her heart set on Julliard since kindergarten so she knew she'd only be applying maybe four other places. She had even already planned her trip there in February for her in-person audition. For some reason, whenever she thought of telling Katniss, she didn't. It seemed superstitious to mention it.

What if Katniss wanted to stay home and go to a community college? What if she got accepted to Stanford and lived across the country? What would happen to them then? Would they, _could they_, attempt a long distance relationship? The only dream she had ever had since she was a child was to attend the prestigious Julliard. That was a dream she wouldn't sacrifice for anything, or anyone.

_If my hours could be spent, near you. I'd be more than content, near you._

They never discussed their future. They spent so much time in each other's present that talking about where they'd be next fall seemed inappropriate. But the discussion would come up eventually. Johanna was already dreading it.

She forced herself to push those thoughts deep into the back of her brain. Tonight was about showing Katniss what she could do with a piano. She was letting the girl in on a piece of her she reserved for herself. One of the last standing walls around her heart. The way Katniss was staring at her, she knew she had made the right decision. Her heart was full as she continued to bang away at her piano, throwing winks and sly glances her girlfriend's way.

_I'll spend the rest of my days near you._

Haymitch's gravely voice ceased singing as he neared the end of another of his songs. The room erupted in applause and everyone but the seated Johanna gave a small bow. He took a pull from his flask and held it out in cheers to the crowd. "I know you're all tired of my voice so I'm gonna hand it over to Jo."

Katniss was surprised at how excited everyone seemed. Not because she didn't Johanna was worthy of the adulation, but because clearly this was a bigger section of Johanna's life than she thought. People came here specifically to see her. She had _fans_.

The band started up again and Katniss was floored when she heard her. Johanna's voice. Her _singing_ voice. The same voice Katniss had heard high pitched in whines and low growls of pleasure. The same voice that had talked her down from nightmares and had sometimes yelled out in her own. Here it was, filling the room with its high lilt and almost country edge. How Johanna ever let those girls are school make her feel small was baffling. But maybe that's what love is. Not understanding your partner's insecurities because where they see flaws, you see stars.

She looked around the room eager to see other people's reactions to her girlfriend. They all seemed equally enthralled. When Haymitch's scratchy voice joined hers it sounded beautiful. It sounded to Katniss like the forest; he the crunching of leaves underfoot and she the birdsong in the trees.

One of the men on the brass replaced Johanna on the piano so she could grab the microphone and move around freely. She stepped off the stage as they began another song. Katniss recognized the tune as Peggy Lee's "Fever." Johanna moved from table to table, serenading different couples.

She sat on a man's lap, her arm draped around his shoulder. His wife feigned being upset so Johanna got up and splayed herself across the woman's lap instead, twirling the woman's hair around her finger as she sang. Even from far away she could feel the lady's blush. Johanna seemed to have that effect. Katniss felt the sharp, unnecessary pang of jealousy strike her between the ribs. Johanna strutted over to other tables, at one point arcing her back completely over a woman's lap, singing upside down, her hair touching the carpet. Katniss felt herself gripping the sides of the chair as the woman began lightly touching the beat against Johanna's exposed abdomen.

_Her_ Johanna. _Hers hers hers._

As she approached Katniss the brunette couldn't help but smile. The music had dipped into an instrumental break so Johanna sat on Katniss's lap and drank the rest of her champagne. "Oh I'm sorry, did you want more?" she asked into the microphone, eliciting chuckles from the audience.

Katniss played along and nodded. Johanna beckoned a waiter who immediately produced another bottle of champagne. Johanna took the cork between her molars and spat it at the stage toward Haymitch. The shaggy-haired man recoiled in disgust and shook his head at her. The raven-haired girl went to pour it in her glass but stopped. A devilish grin on her face, she took a swig of the drink and motioned for Katniss to tip her head back. As she did Johanna leaned down and kissed her, releasing some of the bubbly into her mouth and swallowing the rest. The warmth of the alcohol and the way it had been administered made Katniss's gray eyes flash with desire and she wrapped her hand around Johanna's neck and pulled her into another, deep kiss. She tasted the champagne on Johanna's tongue, but also ...vodka. That "bottle of water" was definitely not water. Her teeth tugged on Johanna's lip as the girl tried to break away.

Johanna refilled Katniss's glass and took the rest of the bottle with her, taking generous swigs of the liquor in between vocalizing. They performed about four more songs with Johanna singing lead, alternating between standing behind the piano and straddling some embarrassed person's waist. Katniss was elated to see this confident, sexualized version of Johanna but she realized quickly she didn't want to share it with everyone else. She wanted it to herself.

She never said she wasn't selfish.

* * *

Johanna was met out in the lobby by a bunch of appreciative patrons congratulation her and the band on their performance. This circle-jerk was always self-indulgent to the raven-haired girl, but she tolerated it for Bogey. He liked when she hobnobbed with the people who had paid a high price to sit in his little club and see them perform.

Finally Katniss emerged from the sea of black and white tuxes, looking radiant in her purple skirt and white top. As much as she adored Katniss's signature braid, she much preferred when she let her hair down in loose ringlets around her shoulders. She liked to thread her fingers through the brunette locks and grip them tightly while she kissed the daylights out of her.

_We're never done with killing time. Can I kill it with you? 'Til our veins run red and blue._

"You ready to leave?" Johanna asked, draping her hands over Katniss's shoulders and boring her deep brown eyes into Katniss's grays. She gave a quick look around and set her lips in a line. "I wanna get the hell out of here. I hate this part."

Katniss nodded and took Johanna's offered hand. The dark-haired girl gave Bogey a wave as she slipped them both out of a side exit Katniss hadn't even seen until that moment. Instead of Johanna's old car it was Polly's roughed-up pick-up truck sitting in the alleyway in between the two buildings. It was dim except for the pale wash of yellow light coming from above the door of the club.

Johanna opened the passenger's side door and helped Katniss up inside the cab. Katniss settled into the high bucket seat, buckling her seat belt and giving herself a peek in the side view mirror. Along with her reflection she could see two figures behind them standing closely. The light didn't quite reach them but Katniss could see a broad-shouldered man and a petite woman holding each other.

_We come around here all the time. Got a lot to not do. Let me kill it with you._

Johanna hopped in the driver's seat and buckled in, adjusting her rearview mirror. She watched Katniss stare into her side-view mirror and raised an eyebrow, looking in the rearview to try and see what had her so engrossed. A smug grin came on her face as she turned the engine over and shifted the car into gear.

"Is that-?"

"Yes," Johanna confirmed with a nod of her head, taking off on to the busy city street, leaving the affectionate couple alone in the alleyway. "Haymitch and Effie have been together for like six or seven years, I think." Katniss's jaw slacked but she offered no response. Her mind was working double time to try and fit Haymitch, the curmudgeon-y man he was, with the bubbly and effervescent Effie. What sort of life decisions had led them together?

"That's ...interesting." Johanna looked over at Katniss and laughed, taking her hand and placing a gentle kiss on the back of it before returning her own hand to the gear shift. She led them back toward Panem, but instead of going back into town to one of their homes, she headed out toward the lake. On some nights there would be kids swimming or bonfires on the small clearing before the water, but tonight there was no one.

Johanna backed the truck up until it was near the edge of the water and cut the engine. She climbed out of the car and went to the back, opening up the door to the flat bed in the back. Perplexed but compliant Katniss hopped out of the passenger's side door and went around to the back of the truck, where Johanna was waiting. As she looked into the back of the truck she didn't see the usual pile of lumber and tarps that seemed to be permanently stuck to the car. Instead it was a mess of blankets and pillows.

_You pick me up and bring me home again. Head out the window again._

Johanna grinned and motioned with her head toward the truck. "Hop in!" She kicked off her own boots and sat on the edge of the truck, peeling herself out of her leather pants and sighing as the slightly cool air hit her damp legs. She shuffled backward until she fell into the plush pile she had created. She slid her hands underneath her head and looked up at the stars. Johanna draped a blanket over her naked waist and reached into her pillow and pulled out her iPod, settling it behind her head and pressing the shuffle. The truck moved under Katniss's weight as she climbed forward toward Johanna and plopped into the blankets, tossing her arm over Johanna's waist and staring over at her.

They laid there in silence for a while, with Johanna's eyes on the stars and Katniss's eyes on her until the brunette finally broke the silence. "You were amazing tonight, you know," she said, rubbing her hand up and down the length of Johanna's side. Johanna smiled but still didn't look over at her girlfriend. "I've never seen you like that. I think that's the happiest I've ever seen you."

Johanna chuckled and finally moved her head to the side to face Katniss, peering at her from over her arm. "Then you haven't been looking at me close enough." Katniss scrunched her nose in confusion and Johanna slid her arm underneath Katniss's pillow to get a better look at her. "I'm happiest with you."

She leaned over and kissed her on the nose before returning to her position to stare at the sky. Light wisps of clouds blocked some of their view, but away from Panem and the city the stars were brightest. Puncturing the clouds like a flashlight through a blanket. Each of them remained lost in their thoughts, meeting occasionally with thoughts of each other, but venturing in different directions.

_We're hollow like the bottles that we drain._

"Jo?" Johanna hummed in response. "Do you believe in God?"

The shorter girl continued looking up at the twinkling starlight above them, musing for that thought for a long time before venturing toward an answer. She had grown up attending church on Sundays until she got old enough to decline going to the services. It seemed like a place that you would go for solace, for reason. Johanna never found either of those things within the stained-glass walls. She only found more questions.

"Not strictly," she responded lightly. Katniss looked over at her, imploring her to continue. "I mean, I don't believe that there's one big white dude in the sky puppeteering the world. Cutting the strings of fate or intervening in lives." Katniss nodded, turning completely on her side to face Johanna as she spoke. She watched the calm rise and fall of Johanna's chest as she spoke. "I can see why people do, though. How amazing to think this isn't just some fucking crazy cosmic accident. Who wouldn't want to be a part of that?"

"I guess so," Katniss responded.

Johanna turned on her side and faced her girlfriend. "It would be cool if there was. If there was actually retribution for the fuckheads who shit on other people's lives. And some reward for people who did some good." She paused. "I believe that other people believe it. And if that gives them peace or hope then more power to 'em."

"It also creates a lot of hate," Katniss added with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, sure it does. But people hate each other for no reason all the time. You remove religion out of the equation and people will find another reason to hate each other. But I don't worry about it, really."

"No?" Katniss looked down toward the blankets. "I think about it a lot. About my dad."

_Pulses can drive from here. We might be hollow but we're brave._

Johanna moved some of Katniss's hair behind her ear and ran it along the length of Katniss's arm until she threaded their fingers together. "It's hard to believe there's a reason for all this when something like that happens. But maybe there is no reason. Maybe sometimes life sucks." Katniss chuckled. "But it's also fucking amazing. Just look up. All those fucking stars. You're not only looking at a big hot ball of gas... you're looking back in time, you know? That star could be long gone by now, but we're seeing what it was. It doesn't care if it served a purpose or not. If it warmed a planet or collided with another star. It just shone as brightly as it could and then went out."

Johanna rummaged underneath the blankets and withdrew a small bottle of some sort of rum. She took off the cap and took a long swig, then handed it to Katniss who parroted the action. "I wish I believed in God. Life would be easier that way."

Johanna snorted and shook her head. "Easy isn't better. Is it easier to think that there's some grand plan and a heaven in the clouds? Sure. But reality is better than that. You're just a combination of stardust and earth that learned to be aware of itself. You can choose and love and hate and feel. _Music_, Katniss. You can make music. And you do all of it... you live life and you love deeply even though you know there's nothing at the end. Even though you know it _will _end. Because it's beautiful, you know? There's so much beauty in knowing how brief life is."

_And I like you. I like these roads where the houses don't change._

Katniss rolled over and placed half her body on top of Johanna's, running her fingers along the cool skin of her girlfriend's legs. She placed a gentle kiss below Johanna's ear. "I'm in love with you, Johanna."

Brown eyes expressed surprise at first, but the slow creep of adoration filled them as she looked down at Katniss. She didn't need to believe in God. She believed in Katniss. She believed that all good things can come from within something you love and that's where she drew her meaning. From within the heart of Katniss. "I'm in love with you too, darlin'."

_Where we can talk like there's something to say._

A need surged though Katniss's veins that propelled her upward. She opened the blanket and straddled Johanna's bare waist and crossed her arms, pulling her shirt off over her head and tossing it down next to some of the pillows. Johanna's hands immediately found her stomach, tracing over the soft skin and muscle there. Every time she saw Katniss it was like a revelation. She didn't need ink and paper to explain her what a miracle life was. Seeing desire in her girlfriend's eyes and feeling her body move and flex beneath her touch was enough.

Katniss slowly unbuttoned Johanna's blouse, her eyes locked on the wide brown ones she adored as her fingers slowly worked downward. Her palms spread across Johanna's chest as she pushed the shirt off of her. Johanna shrugged her arms out of the sleeves and watched Katniss gaze down at her. Her torso felt cold now that it was exposed to the night air, but Katniss's hands began to warm her as they traversed across her breasts and ribcage.

_I'm glad that we stopped kissing the tar on the highway._

She leaned down and nuzzled into Johanna's ribs, lacing wet kisses along the small poke of bone against skin. Her lips dotted upward in between Johanna's breasts until she finally landed on her lips, seizing them in a feverish kiss that threatened to take both of their breaths from their lungs. Katniss groaned quietly as she felt Johanna wrap her fingers in her hair, tugging at her as they kissed.

Katniss used the blanket and draped it over her shoulders, shielding them both from the cool breeze coming off the lake. It was oddly thrilling, having Johanna outside in the woods. A place where Katniss felt comfortable and most herself. The sound of the wind in the trees and the occasional chirp of a cricket and now, the sounds of Johanna's ragged breathing as she began her descent toward her center.

_We move in the tree streets. I'd like it if you stayed._

Johanna's preference was not to sit back and take pleasure laying down. She felt flattened by the immensity of the stars above her head and the persistent pleasure of Katniss's tongue and fingers inside her. Caught between the past in the sky and the future in Katniss's loving (albeit lust-filled) eyes. She didn't try and grab Katniss's hair and move her like she normally would have, or cupped her own breasts to heighten her pleasure. Her hands went behind her head and she just relaxed into Katniss's touch.

Katniss looked up briefly from her position in between Johanna's legs and saw the delirious, lazy smile on Johanna's mouth. Her own lips made a grin against Johanna's folds and she dipped her head to return to her quest in unraveling her girlfriend as slowly as possible. She tasted sweet with the slight tang of sweat. Her face was so relaxed Katniss wasn't even sure if she was receiving pleasure anymore. Johanna seemed blissfully lost somewhere with her eyes closed and her bottom lip tucked between her teeth.

Her hands on Johanna's legs felt the tremor in her muscles and she began to quicken her pace against Johanna's insides, the sound of her fingers clicking in and out of Johanna's wetness and the lapping of her tongue humming over the din of the forest. Her ragged breaths were replaced by quiet whines of pleasure as her body began to release the coil of orgasm within her. While normally she enjoyed being close to Johanna's face when she came, absorbing her screams into her mouth or simply watching her eyes flutter out of control, tonight she was happy to feel the quiver and shake of Johanna's clitoris against her tongue as the wetness seeped from within her and left a small darkened spot on the blanket below her.

Her mouth continued to work against Johanna's sex, her lips wrapping around the swollen nub and sucking until Johanna came undone once more. This time she was less quiet, she let her voice echo against the trees as expletives and Katniss's name bounced around the woods and back into the night sky. Her hips landed with a soft thud against the blanket as Katniss wiped her mouth on the blanket and moved against Johanna's body.

Questions about their future could fuck off, Johanna thought. The night was young, they were young, and the future could wait. She was more her father's child than she would ever admit.

_We're getting good at this._

* * *

Author's Note: Welp that chapter was longer than I intended but I hope you enjoyed it!

Music: "There's A Light That Never Goes Out" by the Smiths, "Near You" by The Andrews Sisters, and "400 Lux" by Lorde.


	10. Chapter 10

Author's Note: I have finally decided on a complete direction for this story and that's the reason for the name change. Also, a trigger warning ahead. It's not pleasant and was extremely difficult to write but important to Johanna's character for the remainder of this story. I apologize if it offends, I hope it doesn't. I will do her justice, I promise. I also promise not to be this dark in the future.

Like the great Wynonna Judd says, "When you hit rock bottom, you've got two ways to go: Straight up, or sideways."

* * *

Johanna had a hard time remembering the last time she had climbed a fence of any sort. As a child she had loved to climb the trees in her backyard; she and some early childhood friends would have races to see who could climb to the top the fastest. Johanna rarely lost on account of being smaller than everyone and scaling trees came as easily to her as breathing. This vine-covered trellis on the side of Katniss's house was a bit more difficult.

Music played constantly in Johanna's head, whether it was consciously or not. Mostly it was either the last song she had heard, or some foreign strain she would try and remember to record or right down. And sometimes, like that moment, it was a relevant tune like a soundtrack to her life. Tonight it was the hard snare and guitar combination of Melissa Etheridge's "Come To My Window." Appropriate and a little funny. Johanna kept climbing.

The night sky looked like the squalid lake she and Katniss had sat in front of a few days earlier, falling asleep under the stars. Tonight the stars were hidden behind a white sheen of wispy clouds as Johanna let out a grunt and placed her sneaker on the trellis. It was like something out of a story book or a country song; when Katniss returned home in the early morning after their night in the back of the truck, Mrs. Everdeen was, well, as angry as Mrs. Everdeen gets. As Katniss told it, it was kind of like watching a pot of water boil. She grounded Katniss for three weeks, only allowing her to leave the house to take Prim to ballet lessons and to see Gale. She was forbidden to see Johanna in an agreement with which Polly had reluctantly agreed. Instead of abiding by this, Johanna was scaling the wall of the Everdeen house in an attempt to get to Katniss's bedroom.

She hoisted herself below the window and gave it a few raps as she held onto the windowsill. Her hands were white from the paint residue on the side of house as she waited impatiently for Katniss to come to the pane. The brunette appeared and smiled, unlocking the window and pushing up the screen. The waft of warm summer air hit her in the face as she grinned at the sweating face of her girlfriend.

"Isn't this romantic? It's like Romeo and Juliet." Johanna groaned in displeasure at the comparison and hoisted herself up, crawling through the open window and on to Katniss's floor. She brushed off her jeans and gave Katniss a once over. "Jo-meo and Juliet." Katniss grinned even wider. "Romeo and Jo-liet." She giggled quietly to herself.

Johanna put her hands on her hips and jutted it out to the side. Her eyes narrowed perceptibly at the taller girl. "If I wasn't so intent on keeping quiet I would be tickling you right now." With a fond smile she kissed Katniss sweetly, holding her face between her hands. "Besides, that's a horrible comparison. They kill themselves over a relationship they had for like three days. I've sat at red lights for longer than they dated."

Katniss ran her fingers along the collar of Johanna's open plaid shirt, running her fingertips down the soft cotton to Johanna's midsection. She was as in love with Johanna in plaid shirts as Johanna is with her in skirts. Something about how femininely butch Johanna looked in them drove her crazy. She'd wear them buttoned up, open and revealing a tight tank top, sleeves rolled up and sleeves rolled down, and her favorite was after sex when it was just her tiny plaid shirt open, usually revealing both her breasts unabashedly.

In one fell swoop she pushed the shorter girl back on to her mattress. Johanna looked surprised but didn't speak in fear of Mrs. Everdeen or Prim overhearing them. Katniss climbed on top of her, straddling her waist in her tight fitting black cotton shorts. She took Johanna's hands and brought them to her lips, giving them a brief kiss before slamming them back onto the bed.

"What are you doing?" Johanna whispered in a tone thick with arousal. Her heart was still racing from her climb but now the quickened pace was a result of being on the receiving end of a very aggressive Katniss.

"Payback." Her lips immediately sought Johanna's racing pulse point on her neck, lacing wet kisses against the soft skin there. She felt Johanna's heart beat on her tongue and her mouth turned in a smile. Johanna was always so confident and firm in herself that it was totally arousing to be able to unwind her with just a few simple movements of her tongue.

"But your mother, your sister..." Johanna sputtered like an old boat as Katniss continued to move her lips around the extremely sensitive skin of her neck. "They could hear us," she pleaded with Katniss weakly, her resolve dying quickly.

Katniss brought her face up so it was just above Johanna's, her wet lips barely touching the top of the other girl. "Then you'll have to be quiet then, won't you? A little like we're in..." Her challenging gray eyes went to the wall, then back to Johanna with her dark brow arching very slowly. "A library."

"O-_oh_," Johanna groaned at both the memory and the new contact of Katniss's hands running laps around her stomach and breasts. "That's unfair." It was unfair, yes, but Johanna was not going to complain. She hadn't seen Katniss in over six days and it had been absolute hell. Nothing on this planet paralleled the feeling of Katniss Everdeen's skin against her own, clear gray eyes staring into the brown abyss of hers.

She was certain of one thing: nothing could keep them apart.

* * *

When the three weeks came to a close Katniss resumed spending nearly every night at the Mason home tucked away in Johanna's loft with her. Reading, watching television, making love or listening to Johanna play her music. On the nights when Johanna and Finnick worked Katniss stayed home, trying to appease her mother's growing discomfort with how much time she spent with her girlfriend.

It was a delicate balance but one she didn't have to worry about for much longer. In two weeks they'd be back at school and she'd again be spending more time with Prim and more time home with her schoolwork. She couldn't do schoolwork with Johanna because she was ...distracting. Every time she'd sit down to write a paper her girlfriend's arms would somehow find their way around her waist. Her lips would find a way to her skin soon after and then all educational thoughts were thrown out the window.

For now she was content sitting on Johanna's plush bed, absorbing herself in a dystopian novel that Johanna had picked out for her a few days prior. Her girlfriend sat in the corner of her room, headphones on, completely cut off from everything around her. Her brown eyes scrutinizing her fingers as they moved across the guitar's fretboard. The sound was muted and traveled into Johanna's ears, but the deep vibrate of her phone made Katniss look over at her.

Johanna stopped her playing and picked up her phone, reading the message on her screen and tossing it onto her amplifier, annoyed. Whoever had been texting her had done so about ten times since Katniss had arrived. Each time Johanna had ignored him or her and looked even more cross. If it was Finnick surely Johanna would have answered him by now. Jealously Katniss assumed it was someone Johanna had slept with. Some girl who wanted her back or wanted to see her. She wouldn't pry so unfortunately her imagination ran wild.

Polly knocked on the door to Johanna's room and since Johanna was deeply involved in her music Katniss called for her to come in. The woman stepped into the room, smiling affectionately at the girl on her daughter's bed. She was glad that Clara had allowed their daughters to see each other again; Johanna had been a brooding mess the entire three weeks. So much so that Polly pretended not to notice when Johanna would sneak out at night to see Katniss.

Johanna looked up and nodded to her mother, then back down at her hands as she would manipulate a few notes and then furiously scribble them down in a nearby music composition notebook. "I'm going over to the Diamant house for a while, evidently they are not wasting any time since their daughter is leaving for college, and they need me to begin turning her bedroom into another office."

"_Another _office?" Katniss repeated, placing her book down on the bed. She frowned briefly at her book, realizing she had forgotten to place a bookmark in it, then back up to Johanna's mother.

Polly laughed and nodded her head, adjusting her tool belt around her waist. "Yeah, an additional office. Mr. Diamant is tired of sharing his office with his wife." Her brown eyes rolled in her head and she looked not unlike her daughter in that moment. It made the ends of Katniss's mouth turn upward. "You girls take care, I'll be back late tonight."

Katniss glanced at the alarm clock next to Johanna's bed and shuffled off the comforter. Her movement finally broke Johanna from her concentration and she pulled her headphones around her neck. "You're leaving?"

The brunette nodded her head as she filed her books into her worn canvas backpack that she swung over her shoulder. She tread across the room toward her girlfriend, kissing her gently on the lips. "Yeah, I should get home for dinner." Johanna looked extremely confused, since typically alone time was something they strove to have together. "I'll call you later."

She nodded her head, giving Katniss a small smile as she walked out the door. "Do you want me to drive you home?" Polly asked, leaning her back against the doorjamb of Johanna's room, her arms crossed over her chest.

"No, it's not on your way there," Katniss refused politely. "And it's a nice night. I'd like to walk." Polly followed Katniss down the stairs and out of their home, waving goodbye to the young girl as she climbed into her pick-up truck. Her engine roared down the street as she took off toward First Street and Katniss made her way home.

It had started out as a nice night but as Katniss was crossing Ninth Street she saw the cumulonimbus clouds coagulating across the sky, threatening rain for her walk home. The gray clouds blotted out the twinkle of starlight and in the distance Katniss saw a bright bolt of lightning bear down on the earth and incinerate the ground somewhere. As she skittered across the street to Eleventh the rain began pouring down hard, coating her t-shirt and jeans within just a few seconds.

She usually enjoyed a freak summer thunderstorm, but from the safety of her home or underneath the canopy of a tree. The oppressively large droplets pounded down on her skin and hair, matting everything to her body until she finally reached the front door of her home. A tentative run of her fingers through her hair indicated that she indeed would need to shower to untangle the otherworldly mess her hair had become.

Across town Johanna sat up in her room, one headphone on her ear, the other to the side as she picked apart more notes on her guitar. The rattle of her phone broke her concentration _again _but this time she hoped it was Katniss so she picked up the sleek mobile and hazarded a glance. It wasn't Katniss. Cashmere had been texting her all night, increasingly furious (and somewhat comical in their over-the-top desperation) messages about not being ignored and wanting to see Johanna again before she left for college._  
_

Johanna was relieved that she was finally going to be rid of the blonde woman. Her entanglement with Cashmere was something that weighed heavily on her during her otherwise light times with Katniss. She knew that her girlfriend was prone to jealousy and having Cashmere always threatening on the periphery of their relationship was not something she wanted.

Her fingers stilled on her guitar as she heard the front door to her house open and close. Whoever it was stayed near the threshold for a few moments, the muffled sounds of fabric shaking floated up toward Johanna's room. Maybe her mother had forgotten something. Footsteps clicked against the hardwood and Johanna's eyes narrowed. That clicking sounded like high heels as far as Johanna could tell. They got louder as the person got closer to her door until they stopped entirely right outside her room.

Johanna's eyes quickly scanned the room for a weapon; a useless endeavor since whoever was standing there was probably female and Johanna felt confident in her ability to take down another woman. She placed her guitar in the stand by her feet and stood as the person opened her door and let herself in. Her pale hands clenched at her sides as she took in the slightly disheveled appearance of Cashmere.

Wicked green eyes took in Johanna with a wide grin. "So this is where you've been hiding, huh? Up in your tower." Cashmere tossed her jacket over a nearby chair, the drenched coat dripping water on Johanna's floor. In spite of the heavy rain coming down outside Cashmere looked insufferably put together, as she always did. A ruffled white skirt that could barely be called a skirt it was so short and a black blouse tucked into it. A few necklaces dangled from her neck and nestled in between her breasts, shining with gold and diamonds.

The blonde girl closed the door behind her, pulling the chair with her coat in front of it. "How the fuck did you get in my house?" Johanna asked, not moving from her stance near her instruments.

Cashmere shrugged and dismissed her inquiry with a wave of her hand. "Your mother always leaves the door unlocked. I remember that from our days during church." Johanna's penetrating gaze drooped to the ground as she guiltily recalled all the Sundays she spent with Cashmere in her bed. At the time trading mass for sex seemed like the most fruitful solution to her aversion to religion, but now she regretted it. It only seemed to further Cashmere's misguided notions that they had something in common other than sex.

"Okay, then _why _the fuck are you in my house? I think I made it perfectly clear by ignoring you that I don't want to see you anymore. Ever. Like in life." Her arms crossed defensively over her chest, attempting to hide her intense trepidation about having Cashmere in her room. What if Katniss came back to surprise her and found Cashmere in here? She'd think they were fooling around; she already left in a weird mood.

"I leave for college tomorrow and you don't even want to wish me good luck?" Cashmere took a step toward Johanna and tilted her head to the side. "I remember telling you that next time I called, you would answer or I would tell Katniss all about your dirty, dark secrets." She took another step toward Johanna. "And somehow, you beat me to it." Johanna's eyebrows rose to her hairline. "Oh, she didn't tell you? I paid your girlfriend a visit a few days ago. All my attempts at making her hate you failed." Cashmere rolled her eyes. "She loves you."

Johanna smirked at the other girl, feeling empowered by Cashmere's admission of defeat. "Looks like you lost then, doesn't it dear?"

The temporary scowl on Cashmere's face morphed into something downright sinister. A loud crash of thunder sounded off next to them through Johanna's open window, and the light above their heads cut off. The low whir of the air conditioning ceased and the room was only lit periodically by bright flashes of lightning. "Oh I wouldn't say that. You see, Johanna honey, all I wanted was for us to have one more night together. Satisfy this itch I've been having."

The blonde woman took a final step toward Johanna, pinning the back of the shorter girl's knees against her chair. Johanna didn't sit down but her torso bent back a little to avoid touching Cashmere. "Get away from me."

Cashmere chuckled and shook her head, reaching her hands up to pull her hair out of its tight ponytail and allowing her blonde locks to cascade on to her shoulders. "When I was a freshman I wanted to be a varsity cheerleader. Normally freshmen are not allowed to even try out, but the head cheerleader said I had potential so she let me. I nailed it, naturally, but there was something in my way. A girl. Some nobody junior with perky tits and a squeaky voice. The decision ultimately came down to either me or her."

Johanna didn't understand why she was being given this irrelevant monologue. If Cashmere wanted to have sex then she was going to leave sorely disappointed because Johanna held no desire for anyone outside of Katniss. In the darkness she heard a click and years of watching films placed the noise in her mind almost as quickly as the metal softly made contact with her forehead. "Is that a gun?" Johanna whispered, her voice trembling although she wished it not to.

Cashmere chuckled. "It sure is. Good call, Mason. It's a 23 caliber handgun. I think they call it a Glock 23. Used by police forces all across the country. You'd be surprised how easy it is to get a hold of one of these." She grabbed Johanna's shirt with her free hand and tossed her across the room toward the bed. Johanna felt her legs hit the side of her mattress but she stood, her eyes darting toward the door. Another bright flash of lightning lit Cashmere and she saw the small pistol in her hand, aimed toward her. "My daddy keeps this in his bedroom to ward off intruders. But his safe lock is so easy to guess it's a joke. Sit down, please."

Johanna obliged, fear spreading across her chest. Cashmere went over toward the door, positioning the chair underneath the door handle so both exit and entry would be more difficult. She rummaged in her pocket as she spoke again. "Well, as you know, I can be pretty competitive. I was not going to lose my shot at being the first freshman in Panem history to make the varsity cheerleading squad on her first tryout. Especially not to some dumb slut."

Cashmere withdrew something jangling and metal from her coat pocket and sauntered across the room back toward Johanna. She motioned with her pistol but Johanna could barely make her out in the darkness. "Lay down on the bed." Johanna followed her instructions and felt Cashmere crawl across her, sitting down on her hips. She tucked the gun into her waistband and Johanna felt cold steel wrap around her racing pulses as Cashmere secured her to her bed. This was not the first time she had ever done this with Cashmere, but it was the first time she did it unwillingly.

Like any hostage she tugged at her restraints futilely. Cashmere smirked down at her handiwork, relishing the feeling of power in having Johanna helpless beneath her. It had been far too long since she had felt the warmth of Johanna's lithe body against her own. The soft curves of her stomach were preferable to the hard abs of her boyfriend. "Anyway, so it comes down to me and the Superslut. And wouldn't you know it? Somehow she falls down the stairs in the hallway the day before the results were going to be posted." Cashmere pouted mockingly. "Poor thing, broken leg and everything. Just couldn't make the squad that year."

Johanna's eyes, nearly black as night in the consuming darkness of her room, widened. Cashmere was a fucking psycho. "You pushed her down the stairs? You fucking crazy bitch."

Cashmere snickered and ran the mouth of the gun along Johanna's jawline. "Oh no honey, I didn't push her. You think I would do that dirty work myself? Hardly." She paused. "She tripped. She tripped and I was on that squad." She leaned down close to Johanna's face, placing her lips on her cheek. "I always get what I want. I wanted varsity, I got varsity. I wanted you and I got you. You think us fucking at that party was an accident?"

"I think you're a crazy person," Johanna replied as evenly as she could considering there was a gun placed directly in the side of her face.

"You're probably right but rich kids _don't_ go crazy. They _don't_ go to jail and they _don't_ lose to little nobodies who live in the worn edges of town." Cashmere moved up on Johanna's body her knees digging into the pillow on either side of Johanna's head.

Johanna squeezed her eyes shut and tried to grapple with what was happening. Cashmere, on her bed, a gun near her temple and her panty-less sex hovering above her mouth. "You're bitter because I'm in love with someone else? You don't even fucking like me. You think forcing me to have sex with you is going to change that?" Her eyes narrowed and she glared hard at the woman above her, even though the barrel of the gun was still pressed against her head. "I'm never going to love you. You'll never be anything but a giant fucking mistake to me."

Johanna saw the brief hurt flash in Cashmere's green eyes but it was erased in a second. Cashmere laughed, leaning over to place the gun on the table next to them. She carefully unzipped the back of her skirt and gracefully pulled it down her hips, under her knees and discarded it gingerly on the floor next to the bed. Her unclothed sex poised directly above Johanna she threaded her fingers through the younger girl's hair. "Oh this isn't about Katniss, not really. It's not even about the sex." She moved backward for a moment and leaned her face in close to Johanna's. "This is about you forgetting who has the fucking power here. You are _nothing_. You will always be _nothing_. And _nothing _ever stands in my fucking way. You think I ever had feelings for you?"

Cashmere crawled back over Johanna's head, roughly shoving the younger girl against her wet sex. Johanna froze for a moment until Cashmere yanked her hair so hard her eyes teared. "I never loved you, Johanna," she said, letting out a tiny gasp as Johanna's tongue hesitantly ran along her folds. "But you are mine. You belong to me." The older girl reached for her weapon, holding in the same hand she braced herself on the headboard with. Her other hand remained painfully wrapped in Johanna's hair, keeping the younger girl's face against her.

Johanna wasn't sure if the tears in her eyes were from the fear, the pain of Cashmere pulling her hair, or the fact that the situation was even occurring. The layers of wrongness piled: she was cheating Katniss, her life was being threatened, and this was, without a doubt, rape. She wanted no part in Cashmere's sick power play for her affection. Never had she felt so powerless.

Having been with Cashmere more times than she cared to think about, she knew exactly how to manipulate her into climax as fast as possible. On the rare occasions she was in the Diamant home, there was the fear that Glimmer or Gloss would show up whilst she was making Cashmere scream in pleasure. That meant learning exactly what the blonde enjoyed and doing it fast enough not to get caught.

Within a few minutes of ministrations with her tongue the blonde above her growled in climax, pushing herself off Johanna and sitting back on her heels. She took a moment to recover from her intense orgasm, taking in deep, shuddering breaths as Johanna stared at her coldly from the bed. "Oh don't act like you don't enjoy that."

Johanna moved her head to wipe her mouth on her shirt without the aid of her arms. "Fuck you. Just let me go, you got what you wanted."

Cashmere laughed, cocking the gun and pointing it directly at Johanna's forehead. She felt the younger girl shudder beneath her and the smile on her face grew sadistically wider. "You think I was just here to get off?" She placed the gun on Johanna's forehead and leaned down so she was level with her ear. "I came here to ruin you."

"I'd rather you just kill me," Johanna replied in the lowest, most stable tone she could manage. And it was true; she'd rather die than have to feel Cashmere force herself on her. The thought made bile rise in her throat.

Cashmere snickered. "Oh do you? Because I could. End your worthless fucking life." She pressed the gun harder into Johanna's forehead. "I'd get some jail time; much less than I should because my family has money and I'm pretty." Johanna rolled her eyes and Cashmere shrugged. "It's a fact. But think about your poor mother. First her deadbeat husband then her useless daughter? I might as well kill her too."

Johanna quivered in anger. Her hands jerked uselessly at the handcuffs, which only served to entertain the blonde above her. "And what of Katniss? What will happen to her when I kill you? She'll be devastated, the poor thing." Johanna's body stiffened. Cashmere raised her blonde eyebrow in acknowledgement of her correctness. "So you're going to sit back and let me do whatever the fuck I want because my love," she leaned in close to whisper directly into Johanna's ear, "you don't have a fucking choice."

The butt of the gun whipped across Johanna's cheek and she winced at the dazing pain. She felt the slow trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth slide down her cheek toward her ear. Cashmere's lips found hers and punished her into a kiss she didn't want, her tongue moving around her mouth. Hard rain pounded against her roof as Cashmere placed the gun on the bed for a moment to use her hands to undo Johanna's jeans.

She wanted to beg her to stop. Maybe if she tried to reason with Cashmere's human side, she would see how wrong what she was doing was. Another loud roll of thunder moved above their heads as Cashmere shoved two fingers inside her. Instead of a plea, a soft sob came up from Johanna's throat. Cashmere had taken on another persona all together. The gun in her right hand and the left inside Johanna she was not trying to give her pleasure; she was handing down a punishment. Johanna bit her lip to suppress the sobs trying to escape the lump in her throat.

Tears slowly leaked out of the corners of her eyes. She willed her eyes shut. Soon it would be over. Whatever she had done to deserve this, she suddenly felt very sorry for it. Her mind tried to move to a place happier, a place where she wasn't in pain. It didn't work. The crack of Cashmere's hand against her mouth or her unforgiving hand pushing inside her center would break her concentration and bring her back into this nightmare.

There was nothing inside her head but the sound of rain and the loud hum of her own fury. The music ceased.


	11. Chapter 11

Katniss drew in a deep breath, holding it in her chest and narrowing her pale gray gaze. The only sound in her ears was the stretching of the bow in her hands, the string quietly whimpering in resistance. The air was finally free of humidity and a slight northwesterly breeze floated in between the trees and in between Katniss and her bow. It ruffled the edges of her t-shirt but had no effect on the trajectory of her arrow.

Calculating for the breeze she lifted her fingers and allowed the arrow to whiz through the air, piercing the breeze and nestling itself in the makeshift bullseye painted on the side of the tree. Calmly she withdrew another arrow from her quiver, setting up another shot. Archery was a two-fold exercise for Katniss: It reminded her of her father, and it somehow wiped her brain of the clutter that life seemed to toss inside her skull. After her father's death, archery had been one of the few ways she had been able to process it. Life could be deceptively simple when boiled down to a girl, a bow, and a target. She and Gale had painted the well-worn red and white bullseye on this big oak tree when they were little and often returned to it when they needed a break from their lives.

It had been five days since she had last seen Johanna on the stormy night she had gone back to her house. The following morning Johanna spoke with a terrible cough; "getting the flu" is what she claimed but something in her voice sounded off. There wasn't the hoarse scratch of someone sick, there was the empty void of someone haunted. Katniss recognized it from the voice her mother had for months after her father's death. Johanna had a warmth about her that Katniss had pinpointed not in any sort of generosity (though she was faultlessly generous to those close to her), but the raging inferno that seemed to power Johanna like a steam engine. She lived and loved fiercely, acted impulsively, and had a dormant temper Katniss had only seen on a few occasions. Those licks of the flame were what drew Katniss in like a mindless insect. But that warmth seemed to had vanished in a few short hours.

Satisfied with her archery work for the day, Katniss retrieved her lodged arrows and wiped off the tips as she made her way back toward her house. The woods behind Twelfth Street had always proved calming and cathartic for her, but today her heart was still restless. Katniss felt her heart had perhaps always been restless and only felt stillness when with Johanna. Her mother warned on several occasions not to plunge so deeply, but she knew just as well as Katniss that the pull of one's heart is stronger than any resistance one can offer. The heart will always win over the head in the end. That's why people end up with their soulmates despite terrible obstacles and the reason why people end up with their abusers despite the one thousand reasons not to. The confusing delirium love provides can lead you to strange places.

It led Katniss into the arms of a woman who seemed to love her to the depths of her soul. When Johanna looked into her eyes it was like being more than naked, it was like being stripped of everything you try to be. Every part of you that you dress yourself in during the mornings, every facet of you that you try to be and present to others, Johanna peeled it away with a penetrating glance. Katniss trusted this stripped version of herself inside Johanna.

She pushed open the storm door in the back of the house, hanging up her bow and quiver near the back door on their respective hooks. The usual clunky piano playing that filled their home was vacant since Prim had taken an interest in the brother of her best friend Rue on Eleventh Street and was outside playing with him. However, two female voices bounced down the hallway toward Katniss and she furrowed her eyebrows. Who could her mother be talking to? As she stepped nearer, footsteps silent like they were in the woods, she could hear the tail end of a conversation.

"I'm not sure of what you're implying, but I can assure you Katniss had no part in that."

"I don't know who else could have done this. It's not as if my daughter's bedroom is some revolving door. Only one person has been seeing her, and that's Katniss. But if this is the type of perversion she enjoys then they cannot see each other."

Gray eyes enlarged quadruple their size as she heard those words. Her pace quickened as she emerged into the kitchen to find Johanna's mother sitting at their dinner table with her mother, two untouched, cold mugs of coffee sitting in front of them. While their voices were soft, there was a hardness behind them that was unmistakeable. Katniss felt as if she had just walked in on a wild west duel.

"Katniss," her mother greeted, seeming genuinely surprised to see her. "I thought you were out in the woods."

"I was," she confirmed, stepping into the kitchen warily. Terror spread inside Katniss's ribcage like a disease, tingling to her fingertips and constricting her voice. "What are you talking about? Why can't Jo and I see each other?"

Polly looked down at her coffee, then over to Clara. The topic was indelicate but much like her daughter, Polly was prone to forthrightness. "Katniss, Johanna has some ...suspicious bruising around her wrists and neck." Katniss felt her body swoon backward until she hit the sink, just a step or two behind her. Her palms against the corner, her fingers gripping the boards tightly. "I have asked her how it happened but she's refusing to speak to me. I wanted to come here before I went to the police."

Katniss's brain seemed to be working ten minutes behind everyone else. Suspicious bruising. Wrists and neck. Police. "Bruising?" The one word question felt stupid leaving her lips, loud and clumsy.

Polly nodded curtly, a flash of familiar impatience in her eyes. "Yes, bruising. It looks to me like something she would have gotten being held against her will." Katniss's cheeks flared with embarrassment for a scenario that never even occurred. Her mind wandered momentarily to the short games of denying pleasure that she and Johanna played, but nothing that would bruise other than a few possessive hickeys. The best part of resisting Johanna was the giving in. She'd never hold her against her will.

Seeing Katniss's dazed look her mother rose to her feet and walked toward her daughter. She wrapped a protective arm around around her back. "And I explained to Mrs. Mason that you would take no part in some kind of twisted," her gaze went downcast with her voice; she did not possess the disregard for tact that Polly had, "sexually deviant game."

Katniss's expression went totally blank. Johanna was hurt. Someone had hurt her. Someone had hurt her Johanna. Numbness was the first thing she felt in the pit of her stomach. "I didn't. I ...I wouldn't." Her eyes went to Johanna's mother. For the first time since entering the room she saw the redness in her eyes, the darkened bags underneath her mascara-free eyelashes, the overall tiredness of her face. "I haven't seen Johanna since I left a few days ago." She looked at her mother. "She told me she had the flu."

Katniss watched the slow realization reveal itself in Polly's eyes. She must have been sure Katniss was the culprit because given that new information, she looked totally lost. The dread that had begun uncoiling itself in Katniss's stomach quickly shot out in all directions, rushing a wave of nausea over her and she quickly whipped around and threw up into the sink behind her.

Clara moved toward Polly, sitting down in the seat across from her. The pain of a mother whose child is hurt reverberated off Polly and Clara caught it full-force, placing a gentle, worn hand on top of another hard-worked palm. Katniss could not content herself with commiserating. As quickly as the sickness had over taken her, anger had followed in rapid pursuit. Whoever had done this to Johanna would pay. She left without a word, grabbing a set of keys from the hook by the door and rushing out into the open.

* * *

There was no time for a leisurely walk to Seventh. Katniss got into her mother's car and floored it in reverse, tires screeching against pavement as she took off toward the Mason household. Johanna had been keeping her at bay with convoluted lies about being sick and practicing music when really she had been suffering in silence. It had been five whole days since she had left Johanna's house. _Why did she leave_? She could have stayed and read more of her book, enjoying the nearness of Johanna and the silence of her loft. Protected Johanna from whatever happened to her.

Regret pounded on the door of her anger but she ignored its call. She could rue her actions any other day, but today, she needed answers. Half-cocked and boiling over Katniss stormed up the Mason walkway and jiggled the door handle, finding it uncharacteristically locked. Her fingers balled into a fist and she pounded on the door.

The most startling thing about what Katniss experienced when Johanna opened the door wasn't the lack of a smile or the vacant look in her eyes. It wasn't the evident bruises around her neck or the dampness of her hair. It was the lack of music. Johanna and music were kinetically entwined. Where there was one, there was the other. But as the door swung open no raucous rock or gentle classical emerged there was silence. Deafening, horrifying silence.

The hot air that had blown Katniss to Johanna's door was sucked back up into the atmosphere as she took in her girlfriend's appearance. Her lip was slightly swollen, a clear red crack down the bottom. A bruise near her cheek by her jawline where Katniss used to lay kisses. Round red marks around her neck with two nearly purple marks right below her jugular. The hand that was poised on the door sat on a wrist that bore the same marks Polly was talking about.

"Katniss." Johanna had intended some malice in her tone but any emotion was an effort. Instead it came out like a tired resignation. She firmed her stance as she watched Katniss's eyes roam all over her injuries. Her mother's reaction had been instantaneous horror. A million questions had spewed from her mouth but Johanna offered no response. She hadn't said anything since the last time she begged Cashmere to stop. She wasn't even sure her voice worked until she used it in that moment.

Katniss wanted badly to be angry. They were partners! They were lovers! She had every right to know why her calls and texts had been ignored, why she had been lied to, who the hell had done this. However, all she could see as she looked at Johanna was someone broken. It was like coming home to your house been burglarized. She had been vicariously violated as well, the trust she had built swept away with one person's actions.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Katniss asked, finding her voice somewhere in the loud din of her mind. The pity in her tone was unintentional but had made Johanna's already brown eyes darken. She entered the room without waiting for permission, walking into their front room. Everything looked different now. Had the attacker gotten her downstairs? Forced himself on her on this couch? Katniss was suddenly overcome with the urge to set the couch on fire.

"There's nothing to tell," Johanna replied, shutting the door behind Katniss. She locked it quickly, double checking the door handle. Katniss observed the action but didn't offer anything. "I don't know what you want me to stay."

Katniss stepped forward hesitantly. "Jo, I know something happened to you. Someone did something to you. You need to tell the police. That person needs to be punished."

Johanna's wild gaze became narrowed and pointed. Katniss felt like she was staring straight into an oncoming bullet train. "Like I said, there's nothing to say. I don't want to talk about it. Something really shitty happened and I don't want to hash it out, okay?"

Katniss tried not to be frustrated but Johanna's pride was like a mountain and could not be bargained with most of the time. "There most certainly is something to say! You were attacked! It's not healthy to act like it never happened." She paused as more terrible thoughts poured into her brain. "Johanna, you could be pregnant. Or-or an STD or -"

Johanna winced as Katniss called her by her full name. Cashmere called her that. "I'm not fucking pregnant. Trust me." The outright certainty in Johanna's voice made Katniss pause. "And what the fuck would you know about it, huh? Nothing, that's what. Just leave me alone." The hardness in Johanna's voice vanished with her last sentence, her angry gaze dissipating and turning toward the stairs. She took the bannister in her hand and pulled herself up the flight of stairs, walking back into her room.

It had been her sanctuary before. The place she ran away to as a child to deal with whatever small time problem little kids have and the place she hid from the world as a teenager. But now, it was a constant reminder of that night. Her eyes staring at the ceiling, unblinking as Cashmere taunted and attacked her. The bed she had made love to Katniss on was tainted with the memory of a few nights prior.

She heard Katniss's footsteps behind her and she turned around. Katniss took in the state of the room. Johanna's bed was completely dismantled, a heap of wood on the floor next to her bedside table and the headboard was on the floor, leaning against the wall. The mattress was gone and in its stead just a small twin bed with a thin fitted sheet stretched across.

It all looked hauntingly vacant. _This_ is where it was. The person had not only gotten into their home but was in Johanna's room, in her bed, forcing himself on her. _Raping her_. Katniss battled the nausea that rumbled up from inside her stomach. The other girl whirled around on her heel, holding herself across her midsection. Her tight tank top hugged her as tightly as she was hugging herself. _  
_

"Katniss, please," Johanna said finally, her voice a pathetic whisper. Even from several feet away Katniss could see her body trembling. "Don't make me do this." In those five words, Katniss felt like she was imploding like a neutron star. Had Johanna said those words to her attacker? She was brimming with the question of who. Who had done this? Who was going to be on the end of Katniss's impotent rage? But the way Johanna was carrying herself, like she was two steps from throwing herself off a cliff, made Katniss stop.

"Okay," she answered with a nod of her head. Johanna looked up with a sliver of hope, casting a glance over her shoulder. She had not expected to be able to keep Katniss from demanding answers from her. Her mother did not want to push her, but Katniss saw through her too easily. She hadn't even meant for her mother to see her bruises at all, she was coming out of her bathroom after her third consecutive shower when her mother was standing in her room, arms folded. A lifetime of being blunt had rendered Johanna an awful liar. In place of lying, she shut her mother out. Evidently her mother thought it wise to tell Katniss. Maybe it was.

The showering had become an obsession of hers and she imagined that's what had gotten her mother's attention. Her skin was rubbed red and raw and her hair wet at almost all times. The showers had been excruciatingly hot but Johanna felt only coldness. It was almost like when you have the flu and no matter how many blankets you pile on there's a chill in your spine. It spreads to your bones and you think warmth will never come to you again. Johanna had become very familiar with her goosebumps.

"Can I stay here with you?" Katniss asked in the smallest voice she could, trying to toe the fine line between pity and respect. Johanna was the strongest person she knew, but some things permeate even the sturdiest of armor. "Would that be okay?"

Johanna nodded and went to her new bed, crawling beneath the giant blanket she had dug out from their attic. The blanket that had been on her bed that night was a memory now, burned in a bonfire she set up in her backyard that had also consumed her clothes and bedsheets. She wanted no reminder of the event that was in the forefront of her brain every waking moment. And in her nightmares.

Katniss got in beside her, tentatively placing an arm over Johanna's stomach. She wanted her touch to be comforting and familiar. She didn't want to remind Johanna of her attack. The other girl tensed beneath her touch but ultimately relaxed. They laid there in silence, listening to the wind move through the trees outside. Katniss missed the melodies that followed Johanna wherever she was.

If Johanna couldn't provide the music, maybe she could. She never considered herself a particularly good singer, especially considering Johanna's voice, but she could carry a tune. She thought of the lullabies she would sing Prim after their father died to quiet her nightmares. The same ones he would sing to them before he died.

_"Deep in the meadow, under the willow. A bed of grass, a soft green pillow. Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes. And when you awake, the sun will rise." _Katniss looked over at Johanna and saw the wetness leaking from the corners of her eyes and her heart squeezed hard. Her eyes were closed but Katniss could feel the pain coming from her. "_Here it's safe, here it's warm. Here the daisies guard you from harm. Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true. Here is the place where I love you._"

Katniss imagined the light plucking of her father's ukelele that he would play when he sang that song to them, the one that was always absent when she sang it to Prim. She'd hum in the meantime but it wasn't the same. In another time she would've asked Johanna to play it for her, but not today. Today was about giving her strength to Johanna. Filling Johanna with music and she had done to Katniss many, many times.

"___Deep in the meadow, hidden far away. A cloak of leaves, a moonbeam ray. Forget your woes and let your troubles lay. And when again it's morning, they'll wash away._" She stroked Johanna's stomach gently, listening to the gentle thumping of her girlfriend's heart. Johanna curled into her, burying her face into Katniss's shoulder and grabbing the front of her shirt into a fist and pulling them closer.

Katniss stopped her tune, placing a gentle, soft kiss on Johanna's forehead. "Don't stop singing," Johanna pleaded sleepily into her neck, sniffling and rubbing her salty eyes on the edge of Katniss's t-shirt. Her tempo slowed down as her father's would because the last stanza was usually the time when she and Prim fell asleep. If not he'd start it up again from the top, but typically they would be out cold. "_Here it's safe, here it's warm. Here the daisies guard you from every harm. Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true. Here is the place where I love you."_

* * *

_Now I'm naked, nothing but an animal._

Johanna didn't want to be treated like a victim. Her father's demise when she was younger piled sympathies she never wanted or asked for and she felt burdened with them. What do you do with people's sympathy when you don't want to internalize it? She didn't want to wear their pity for others to see. Her father would not have tolerated it. Instead she had a stiff upper lip, cruising through life without really acknowledging his death. She justified it as a part of life, as an inevitable end to a man who lived always on the edge of death. The child psychologist her mother sent her to had said she was in denial. That she never truly accepted her father's death and until she did, there'd be an emotional void.

Johanna thought he was full of shit, even as a kid. You can't grieve a man who was barely in your life; no one misses ghosts. Her mother had been more than enough parent for them both anyhow. Like that event, her own rape felt like a similar situation. If she just soldiered through it, it couldn't destroy her like Cashmere had intended.

Katniss had been wonderful, spending the last few days before they went back to school encouraging her to get back into music, taking her out to green meadows and the beach near the lake, or simply holding her and letting her cry. But never, ever did they speak about what happened. Johanna felt like giving the attack words gave it life again. Giving it anything but a hard beating with a shovel seemed to make it fresh and new. However, she knew it was only a matter of time before Katniss insisted on a name.

The name didn't matter anymore anyway. Cashmere was on the East Coast of the country at school, probably terrorizing someone poor co-ed. Johanna had changed her cell phone number in hopes of ending all contact with the blonde. She was far, far away but somehow still omnipresent. When Johanna closed her eyes she saw the flashes of Cashmere's green gaze boring into her. Voices in her head were the abusive whispers of her taunts, her threats. An itch on her skin was Cashmere's fingertips trailing her skin in deceptively gentle movements while she caught her breath.

_But can you fake it for just one more show?_

The bruising had become a light yellow discoloration by the time they went back to school. In spite of the Indian summer giving the air a heat that was unusual for September, Johanna wore her shirts with long sleeves, suffering the heat instead of suffering the stares. A new school year, their last school year, was upon them and she didn't want to start it with a bunch of questions. Johanna's school schedule was sparse. A mandatory gym class, mandatory English, an advanced music class with Haymitch, a Calculus course she regretted letting Ms. Trinket cajole her into, and a creative writing class she thought she might enjoy. The teacher was new this year, fresh-faced from graduate school, so Johanna figured it would be a breeze. New teachers were usually pushovers.

Johanna waited on her corner for Katniss and Prim, relieved to be getting back into a comfortable rhythm. Everything else about her life was still puttering but school and schedule were much the same. Prim rattled incessantly as they made their way toward the school, stopping every so often to make sure her sister and Johanna were listening.

They were, hands clasped together tightly, with Katniss's eyes on her sister. Johanna's gaze was faraway in the blue sky before them. She felt like she was at a heavy metal concert, her head pounded with noise but her hearing was muted. Her own thoughts were drowned out by the constant din of her memories. The physical pain had subsided but the emotional scars were open and bleeding.

Johanna was abruptly greeted by Finnick upon her arrival inside the building, brought into a crushing hug that made her breathing come in ragged gasps. "Jo! It's been like weeks, girl," he greeted with a warm smile, gnawing on a minty piece of gum in his mouth. Annie stood behind him, waving timidly. Her mess of red hair fell to the side as she canted her head to look in Johanna's eyes. She recognized that panic. She tugged on Finnick's shirt and he detached himself from his best friend.

_And what do you want? I want to change._

"You've been keeping my girl busy huh Everdeen?" Finnick asked jovially, nudging Katniss in the shoulder. The horrified look on her face wiped the smirk right off Finnick's visage. He looked quickly from Johanna, who had braced herself against the door, her teeth clamped on her bottom lip and back to Katniss. Annie began mumbling to herself and broke Finnick from his concentration and he went to her side.

"Are you okay?" Katniss asked, stepping toward Johanna. Her girlfriend waved her off with her hand and nodded. Her reaction had been not at all what she was hoping. No one had held her that tightly since she had been pinned down. Katniss had only recently started giving her light, quick hugs that Johanna could tolerate on occasion.

"I'm fine. I'm just gonna go use the bathroom. I'll see you at lunch." Johanna took off down the hallway, passed the inquisitive and dismayed look of her blond friend. Finnick wrapped his arm around Annie's back and guided her toward Katniss.

"What the hell happened? Was I not supposed to give her a hug?" Finnick was lost. His friendship with Johanna had weathered just about everything. Johanna's father's death, her coming out, his defending Annie to bullies nearly all their lives, his drug-addled mother, everything. They told each other everything, always. She was his only confidant even though he was always surrounded by friends. Most of the swim team were stupid jocks and the drama club were a bunch of queens. Johanna was the only one to keep them grounded and not fall into the pointless high school popularity contest.

While hitting puberty had graced them both with good looks, Johanna used hers as a weapon to keep people away, while Finnick used his to deflect attention off Annie and survive his tumultuous mother. Since she starting dating Katniss, Johanna had been around less but they still talked via text or saw each other when Johanna worked at the general store. But her reaction then had been almost revulsion.

Katniss shook her head. "No. It's ..it's a long story that I don't have the right to tell you. She'll tell you when she's ready. Just don't, um... don't touch her." Katniss walked around Finnick sadly, making the familiar trip down toward her locker.

_And what have you got when you feel the same?_

Johanna gripped the seat of the toilet, staring into the murky beige color inside the water. She reached up and pulled down the chrome handle and the mess swirled away from her as she backed away to avoid getting hit with the spray. The disoriented girl pulled herself up and slowly unlocked the stall, stumbling out toward the sinks. Sweaty palms were placed against the light pink porcelain sink and she stared into the blurry mirror. Stupid tears fought their way out of her eyes and she squeezed her eyelids to force them out quickly.

The door swung open and someone entered, causing Johanna to whip around and quickly wipe her eyes with her sleeves. She didn't recognize the woman but she knew she wasn't a student. She was dressed in a tight fitting button-down navy blue blouse with pearl buttons that was tucked neatly into a knee-length pencil skirt. She looked just as startled to see Johanna, her blue eyes wide and apologetic.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't think anyone would be in here. It's early yet," she explained in a calm voice. Johanna's eyes finally met her hair, which she couldn't help but look surprised at. Her long blonde locks are all parted to the side, with the left side of her head completely shaven. Crawling up her temple were green vines tattooed onto pale skin, curling around the shaved part of her head and disappearing behind her ear.

Johanna busied herself washing her hands, pumping an extreme amount of soap into her palm. She turned only the hot faucet on and winced as she placed her hands beneath the water. She scrubbed vigorously until she felt the stare of the other woman on her back. Feeling a bit self-conscious she finally went to the side of the room near the frosted windows and grabbed a handful of paper towels. "Did you come in here to watch me wash my hands?"

The woman's mouth moved into a smirk that made her cheeks almost concave. It relaxed into a pretty smile as Johanna tossed the paper towels into the nearby wastebasket. "Had I not been in a bathroom I'd have thought you were doing a Lady Macbeth monologue in here." Johanna's dark eyebrow moved upward and the woman crossed her arms neatly, holding her elbows. "Have you not read _Macbeth_? 'Out damned spot?'" Johanna was sure somewhere in the last four years Macbeth had snuck into her reading material. She could vaguely remember something about being king and three witches. "Lady Macbeth feels guilty and rubs a spot on her hand for like days. Spoiler alert, she gets tired of it and chops the whole damn thing off. Guilt consumes her."_  
_

"Like the _Tell-Tale Heart_?" Johanna asked, resting her backside against the sink. This random conversation with this older, attractive woman was keeping her mind off the reason she was in there to begin with. It was nice. It was easy.

The woman's burgundy-stained lower lip protruded in an impressed expression. "Good to know at least not _all_ literary references are lost on you. And, now that I know your hands are clean, I can introduce myself." She walked forward slowly, holding her hand out. "Cressida. I'm the new teacher in the English department."

Johanna pieced the information as she shook the woman's hand. Her new teacher for creative writing's first name had been abbreviated with a single C so this must be her. She was startlingly attractive in an unconventional way. Ears just a tad too big for her head but kept tightly against her skull, accented with about six silver and diamond-encrusted piercings that went up her earlobe and toward the outer shell of her ear. Eyes a shade of pale blue that rivaled even the sunniest of summer skies. A nose that was a bit pointy, a bit too wide, but somehow all these features combined to make her beautiful.

"Johanna Mason," she replied, as she pulled her hand away as unobtrusively as possible.

_Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage._

Bright blue eyes went clear with realization. "Mason. You've got my class in your last period, is that right?" Johanna nodded her head in silent confirmation. "Mr. Abernathy, or Haymitch," she corrected with an eye-roll, "told me a lot about you. I was actually present one of the nights you played down at Bogie's."

"You were?" Johanna prided herself on having a good eye for people. If someone as blatantly attractive had watched her play, she would remember.

Cressida nodded, a knowing and mischievous look in her eyes. "Imagine my surprise when a phenomenally talented young girl arches her back completely over my lap, encouraging me to tap out a rhythm on her stomach." Johanna looked away from her to try and file back to a night when she might have done something so showy. Her brain clicked and her eyes were brought down to Cressida's. "I had no idea you were in high school. The way you cavorted around that stage. It was impressive, mesmerizing. Like watching Nora do the Tarantella in _A Doll's House_."

Another literary reference. Johanna smirked, feeling a bit of her old self creeping back inside her. "Well thanks. That was an interesting night."

Cressida let out a quiet chuckle. "I bet. That other young girl you fed the champagne, I would hope that she's your girlfriend? Or at the very least, she is now."

Johanna laughed, the first real laugh she had expended since before ...that night. Her eyes turned appreciative. This woman didn't know it, but she was distracting her from very violent, consuming thoughts. "Yeah, she is. Her name is Katniss. Katniss Everdeen."

"Katniss Everdeen," Cressida repeated as if to commit the name to memory. Her gaze settled on the young girl in front of her, relieved at the change in demeanor. Walking in a crying girl in the public restroom had caught her off-guard, but she was delighted to see she remembered the girl. There was torment behind her eyes that Cressida knew she was helping push away, at least for a moment. She didn't possess a lot of skills in her estimation, but she had a solid intuition. "I'll keep my eyes peeled." The warning bell rang above their heads and Cressida's eyes darted to the ceiling. "You might wanna hurry up."

Johanna shrugged. "It's my senior year. I'm not in any rush to get to homeroom."

Cressida laughed, her heels clicking against the worn tile beneath her as she crossed toward Johanna. "That better not apply to my class, Mason. I might appreciate your talent as a singer but that won't buy you any preferential treatment."

Johanna took the bait and ran her tongue along the tops of her teeth. "I have all year to get under your skin, _Cressida_," Johanna mocked, moving toward the door. "And I will."

The taunting, the friendliness, the distraction. Johanna felt like a small piece of the tremendous weight on her chest slowly lift. Just a few ounces but it felt like freedom. Her every interaction since that night had felt so forced, so laden with guilt and unanswered questions. Katniss was so supportive but even her constant, unwavering steadfastness came with a price: They didn't touch. She could barely kiss her without grimacing. Her rape hung like a heavy metal chain around their relationship. Her mother, forget it. Polly was beside herself nearly every day, alternating between coddling Johanna and treating her like nothing had happened. It gave Johanna emotional whiplash that made her want to avoid her mother all together.

Finally, someone didn't know what happened but somehow... she did. She kept space, she kept talking, she seemed to understand that she had come upon a delicate situation but she didn't handle it like Johanna was a Faberge egg. She treated her like a normal person. A normal person who didn't want to be touched or asked questions or demeaned. It was her first bonafide normal interaction. It felt wonderful.

_And I still believe I cannot be saved._

* * *

Author's Note: Thank you for all the new followers and the new reviews! I know that last chapter was heavy, and this one a bit too. Thanks for hanging in there! I'm in love with Natalie Dormer and there's no way I'm not including her in this story. I imagine after Mockingjay comes out, the Cressida fan fiction will skyrocket. It also occurs to me that non-US readers might not have the same school situation so for quick reference, this is Johanna and Katniss's last year (Twelfth?) and they are seniors. Periods are what we call each class during the day, at least where I'm from. Not sure how you all reference those so I wanted to be clear.

Special thanks to the reviewers for their amazing and undeserved words. :)

Demian - I love you. CONCIERTO DE ARANJUEZ IS MY FAVORITE CLASSICAL PIECE OF ALL TIME. I know you didn't know that, obviously, but it is. I went back and read the chapter while listening to that song and yeah, wow, what a tragically perfect fit.

PS - To the people PMing me for headcanons and stuff, I can try to do a few. If anyone has any one-shots they'd like to see of Joniss, PM me and let me know or leave it in the reviews. I can't commit to a full story because between these three and you know, _my life_, that would be an impossibility. But I'm humbled that you want me to write more.

Music - "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" by the Smashing Pumpkins, as well as "Down in The Meadow" from the Hunger Games.


	12. Chapter 12

_I give her all my love. That's all I do. And if you saw my love, you'd love her, too. And I love her._

Katniss wasn't sure what she was expecting. If she had been honest, the date had actually slipped her mind. Being with Johanna had made the days and weeks suddenly irrelevant, other than separating the weekend from the weekdays. Somehow, though, Johanna had remembered. Underneath her sadness and anger Johanna had remembered.

They had been together exactly a year. One year ago, to the date and possibly the hour, Johanna had leaned forward on the dusty table and kissed her. The dull shade of everyday life exploded into technicolor. Music, happiness, love. Johanna had brought all of those things into her life without guilt, without pretense, without guile. She wanted nothing in return except a little patience, to be loved. Katniss had both of those in spades.

The one thing that stuck in her mind from her mother and father's marriage was the certainty. When they would lock eyes from across the room, even if they were doing two different tasks, minds on two very different things, they'd somehow come together in that brief moment. You could never doubt their love. Katniss had envied that as a child, especially when he died and her mind was like a rogue planet, zipping through the cosmos tethered to nothing. She missed the certainty of her parents' love. She doubted ever finding that kind of absolute in her life. Nothing is forever. Nothing is in stone.

Except Johanna.

_She gives me everything and tenderly. The kiss my lover brings, she brings to me. And I love her._

A few months into their relationship Katniss had imagined their year anniversary somewhat differently. She imagined taking Johanna somewhere far away and clear, making love to her from sunset to sunrise. Something cheesy that you'd take a picture of and send to someone saying "don't you wish you were here?" A snowy mountain, a shining lake nestled in a blanket of forest, a secluded beach with an unexplored cave. Her mind raced with wildly romantic thoughts that were altogether alien but not at all unwelcome.

But fate had changed all that. They'd hit a squall in their voyage and Katniss as unsure of how to take back the wheel. The painful part wasn't even really the lack of touching (though it was agonizing), it was the twisted, pained expression Johanna wore when Katniss knew she was holding in what she wanted to give. The fear was blocking her from showing how much she cared. The frustration behind that fear even more heartbreaking.

_A love like ours could never die as long as I have you near me._

In place of some romantic gesture, Johanna had managed to get the house alone. The piano that sat in their downstairs foyer she had tuned and repaired, shining the instrument until it reflected every light in the living room. She couldn't bring herself to do something over the top like she had wanted. She struggled every day with kisses and hand-holding. Sex was absolutely out of the question. But music. That was a piece of her she could manage to part with.

Candles lit around the room were there not only for ambiance, but also to mask the smell of burnt food and pizza, the result of Johanna's laughable attempt to cook something of substance for them. A broken fire alarm (smashed on the floor), swear words and one large cheese pizza later, Katniss was laying on the couch, listening to Johanna sing. Her voice was lower than normal, a rasp that Johanna couldn't seem to shake out like she had a cold for the past few weeks.

_Bright are the stars that shine, dark is the sky. I know this love of mine will never die. And I love her._

Johanna slowly plunked out the last few chords of the song, letting the instrument resonate through the room. Katniss stood from the couch, crossing the few feet toward the piano and sitting on the bench next to her. Johanna turned and pulled her leg underneath her knee as Katniss swung her leg over and straddled the bench. They faced each other close, but Johanna's eyes still held distance. Katniss wanted so badly to cross that gap between the present and wherever Johanna was.

"Is it okay if I kiss you?" Katniss asked softly, placing her hand on Johanna's cheek as gently as possible. Gray eyes searched chestnut ones, trying to find a piece of her Johanna in there.

Johanna nodded her head. Cashmere had said she wanted to ruin Johanna. She was off to a good start. Setting fire to the only thing that mattered to Johanna - her relationship ith Katniss. They'd never get anywhere if Johanna kept acting like she was. Afraid to be touched but offended at being treated differently. Katniss managed to walk that tightrope for the past few weeks but Johanna knew it was only a matter of time before she fell one way or the other: away from her or too close.

Lips pressed gently against her own in an achingly sad touch. Johanna thought she could feel the restrained pulse of Katniss's desire in her lips. She wanted them both to give in to that desire. She wanted to whisk Katniss upstairs and make her body sing. How desperately she wanted to make Katniss's body shake with desire and steal the breath from her lungs.

The fear was paralyzing. Even now, as her tongue ran boldly across Katniss's lip and drew a groan from her lover, a shudder ran through her not rooted in desire. She remembered Cashmere's lips kissing her deceptively soft, whispering against her skin that no one would ever love her. Nobody takes care of broken things. That's what she was now, Cashmere had reminded her, a broken thing.

If Cashmere wanted her broken, she would have to be whole. Her fingers ran along Katniss's arms, tingling goosebumps in their wake until they were in her hair, gripping her and holding her close. Katniss expelled a startled breath against Johanna's lips as she placed open-mouth kisses along her cheek. "Do you want to stop?" Katniss asked against her ear, tucking a rogue strand of raven hair behind it.

Johanna nodded and they slowly pulled away. Katniss smiled and held Johanna's face in her hands. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" Katniss scooted close to Johanna on the bench, her fingers still rubbing small circles underneath Johanna's hairline. "This has been the best year of my life. I haven't ever been happier." Johanna's eyes dropped to the space between them and Katniss lowered her gaze to catch them. She brought both their eyes back up and smiled again. "I know that this is hard for you. But that fact that you're still here is all that matters. You're here, and you're mine and no one can take you from me."

* * *

_You hate the tenderhearted torch song._

The classroom was disturbingly quiet. The grating scribble of lead on paper and the very low murmur of a small radio in the corner of the room the only noises in the air. Johanna's ears couldn't help but tune into the song coming out of the speakers of the small radio near the window. Not only was it a song she liked, but she was like one of Pavlov's dogs when music played. She was drawn to it on a physical level. It stirred her soul.

Her pencil began writing verses to the song playing that didn't exist. These creative writing exercises that Cressida had them do once a week had become something Johanna, while at first resistant, now looked forward to every Friday. By the seventh week she was close to running out of time each class to finish hers. The criteria was always open: they could write whatever they wanted in whatever style, as long as they turned it in at the end of class. Johanna looked up toward the blackboard to observe Cressida, who was busy grading one of their earlier assignments. A sleek black ballpoint pen was bitten between her teeth, her pale blonde eyebrow raised high on her head as she moved her eyes across the page.

"Cressida?" Marvel called from the back of the room, his arm high in the air. Nosy students turned their heads to see him. Marvel was not one of Johanna's favorite people. He ran in the same crowd as Cashmere and her cronies and Johanna was fairly certain he was functionally illiterate. The only reason he'd graduate with them this spring was because of his status on the football team.

Bright blue eyes looked up and she withdrew the pen from her mouth. "Yes, Marvel?"

"What's another word for 'hate'?" Cressida got up from her desk, skirting around the side to sit on the front of it. She rested her bottom on the edge of her desk, her short, flowing short splaying out in front of her. She crossed pale legs over each other.

"That depends. What kind of hate?"

Marvel looked around at his classmates for support, getting only giggles in response. He ran his fingers through his cropped brown hair and gave her a thoroughly stupid look. "Uh, I dunno. Just regular hate."

"Regular hate?" Cressida repeated, raising her eyebrow. She was not at all amused by Marvel's showboating in front of the class. She folded her hands in front of her, looking down at them before glancing back up at the boy. She held an intensity in her eyes that caused many people to shrink away. Notorious for maintaining perfect eye contact through a conversation, thereby intimidating the other person. Johanna had watched many students and teachers alike melt into a puddle because of her intense gaze. "Marvel, words don't exist so they can fall out of your mouth like an accidental baby."

"Look, Teach," Cressida grimaced at the word. Marvel sounded like a 1950s American, like Danny from _Grease_. "I'm tryin' to write a rap verse here and hate doesn't flow. I just need another word."

"You 'need another word.' No. You need the _exact_ word. The word hate is very powerful. It's an emotion you feel in every part of your body. Studies have shown the effects of hate on the nervous system, the immune system. Something that complex cannot be boiled down to one word to cover it all. If your girlfriend cheated on you with your best friend, would you hate them?"

"Uh, well, yeah, duh." Johanna felt like his words were just the primal grunts of a monkey, beckoning a tree for a banana. Moot and stupid.

Cressida ran her tongue along the bottom row of her teeth inside her mouth to hide the disdainful smirk she knew was coming. She nodded instead. "Right. But you wouldn't just hate her, or him, would you? This is the highest betrayal. You gave your heart to her and she smashed it like it was a cake at a toddler's party." She lifted herself from the desk and began walking down the row of seats toward Marvel very slowly. Despite the clack of her heels against the tile, Johanna thought she moved like bobcat. She wrote that as such in her notebook.

_You catch a flame to my sentiment, my sentimental tune._

"Well yeah I'd be pissed. I'd break up with her and screw one of her friends." The boy next to him gave him a high five. Johanna felt revulsion in her veins.

Cressida's eyes rolled as she continued to make her way toward the back of the room. "In your poem, Marvel, what do you hate?"

"It's a _rap verse_," Marvel clarified. "The police."

"The police? Why the police?"

Marvel shrugged his shoulders, his large letterman's jacket bobbing up and down. "Because they suck. I've always hated them, even as a little kid. They take my stuff. Last year they tried to take my license because I was speeding."

"Good," Cressida cooed, finally reaching Marvel's desk. She stood behind him, looming over his shoulder. "So you think they're thieves."

"Yeah, I do. Paying taxes so they can rob us on tickets and fines and shit."

"Fair enough. What else have they taken from you?" Marvel's smug grin began to disappear. He turned his torso in his chair to face Cressida, whose head was tilted awaiting an answer. "I imagine this hatred you want to name is not just because of a few parking tickets. That kind of hate passes fleetingly. That's displeasure, irritation, annoyance. Quick, dirty, hot, meaningless. Like sex with someone you don't love." The class giggled and murmured their agreement.

"What are you talking about?"

"Think, Marvel. Your hatred of the police. This has boiled inside you since you were a boy. A slow brew of anger rising up inside you like a dormant volcano. Small eruptions when you get pulled over or find a small piece of paper underneath your windshield wiper. And it settles, you go back to normal, but that hate is always there, right?"

Johanna watched Marvel's mood rapidly deteriorate. The classroom's giggling and muttering got deathly quiet as they awaited the boy's answer. "I don't know."

"Yes you do," was Cressida's quick reply. Everything about her reminded Johanna of a fresh fall apple. Crisp, bitter, sweet, confident. An apple was always an apple, no matter what you put it in or covered it with. Insistent. Constant.

"No, I don't!" he snapped, gripping his palms on his desk.

"Yes, you do," she replied calmly, clearly unruffled by the boy's rising temper. "Think, Marvel. A man in uniform is approaching you, staring at you through mirrored sunglasses. You can't help but notice the gun in his holster, the nightstick on the other side of his belt. He walks with calm authority toward you. He wrinkles his nose as he gets toward you, as if your mere presence offends his sense of smell. Black whiskers moving around underneath his nose. He's got a wad of gum in his mouth. You can almost see it when he chews, open-mouthed and loudly like a cow with cud. He's there to take from you. They always take from you." She leaned down next to him, her hand on the back of his chair. "How do you feel?"

Marvel seemed to simmer for a few moments, his green eyes narrowed in deep thought. Johanna suddenly recalled being a kid and her mother telling her how some kid's dad got arrested, only a few months after her own father died. Sort of a '_See, everyone's families are messed up'_ kind of way. Could that have been Marvel's dad?

"I'm...I'm... I'm fucking furious."

"There you go!" Cressida exclaimed, startling Marvel from his rage. She slapped him on the back and gave him a warm smile. "Great job! _Fury_. Use that. Fury, like a whirling tornado destroying everything in its path without discrimination. Obliterating people's lives, homes, streets, yards. You're not angry, Marvel. You're _furious_. You're infuriated."

Cressida walked back toward the front of the room and around to the back of her desk, slipping into the leather chair. "Let that be a lesson for all of you. Don't just use a word because it's there and it's easy. Use the word you mean. Think about why you need that word, then tailor it correctly. Sure red thread can sow a button on a green jacket, but you need red thread to make it look right. And what if the jacket is crimson? Will you use a fire engine red? No, it simply won't do. You dig and dig until you find the perfect shade." She smiled at the class. "Find the perfect shade of phrase you're looking for. Don't settle."

_Hard-hearted don't worry, I'm ready for a fight._

A few of her classmates had finished, handing in their black-and-white marble composition notebooks to Cressida and shuffling out the door. Johanna continued to write on, barely conscious of the words that were emerging onto the blue-lined paper. It was when she let her stream-of-consciousness run free that she felt even a little separated from the shackles of her memory.

Johanna slapped her notebook closed and began rummaging things around in her messenger bag, buckling the sides in and hoisting it over her shoulder. As she passed by her teacher's desk she stopped, tilting her head to the side. "Do you want some help?" Cressida was attempting to carry not only her briefcase with her laptop and papers, but sixteen composition notebooks. Johanna saw the blonde about to protest and she took half the stack of notebooks, adding hers to the top. "Don't be so proud."

"Are you the pot or the kettle, Mason?" Cressida asked with a grin, following the younger woman out of the classroom and flicking off the lights behind them. Johanna rolled her eyes at the jab and walked side-by-side with her teacher down the hallway that was still cluttered with students leisurely getting their things from their lockers.

"That was some show with Marvel the Meat-Head."

Cressida laughed heartily as the pair made their way into the faculty parking lot. Johanna was relieved to see the sky was a pale wash of blue and white. Thunderstorms and even the light pitter-patter of rain made her nauseated. The blonde woman fumbled in her briefcase for her keys, emerging with a set of color-coded keys on a small keyring.

"Don't you have a clicky thingy?" Johanna asked, looking out toward the parking lot. "You know, to boop the car and tell us we're getting close?"

"A _clicky thingy_ to _boop_ the car?" Cressida repeated with a raised eyebrow. Johanna glared at her. "No, I do not have a key fob - the phrase you lost somewhere in that brain of yours - because my car was made in the 1960s." They approached a candy red convertible with the white hardtop up, racing tires gripping the gravel of the parking lot. Cressida went around the back and stuck the key in, popping the spacious trunk.

Johanna followed her with a skeptical gaze. "_This _is your car?" She placed the notebooks in the trunk which was upholstered with a black leather fabric, a spare tire to the right. It was clean and organized, like how Johanna kept hers.

Cressida closed the trunk and crossed her arms over her chest. "Mason, would I have the key to a car that was not mine?" She grinned. "And to think you called _Marvel_ the meathead."

_Unnerved, the nerve, you're nervous. Nervous that I'm right._

Johanna ignored the comment and walked slowly around the old muscle car, eyeing it approvingly. "This is a 1969 Plymouth GTX. Original paint," Johanna slid her finger along the side of the car as she made her way to the hood, "and an air grabber." She peered at Cressida over the car's roof. "That was not standard. May I?" Johanna motioned toward the hood and Cressida nodded, coming around the side of the car to join her. Johanna ran her fingers under the roof and found the lock, popping the hood open and pushing it upward. "Wow. This is gorgeous."

She glided her hand along the smooth surface of the engine, which was painted candy apple red to match the exterior. "Typical of a girl who likes old jazz to appreciate the finery of a well-cared for muscle car."

Johanna grinned wickedly at Cressida. "Oh you have no idea. I don't just appreciate. I ogle. I'd sell my soul to you for this car." Cressida chuckled as the younger girl closed the hood and touched the top of the car affectionately. "Not that I don't love my car. A 1966 Pontiac GTO. All original parts, inside and out," she stated proudly.

Cressida whistled her appreciation. "That's a beautiful car. How did you come upon something like that?"

Johanna shrugged, moving around Cressida's car to appreciate more of its streamlined beauty. "Something I inherited from my dad." Johanna placed her palms above the driver's side door, staring into the interior. "He kept it in shit condition - like he did everything else in his life - so my mom and I spent a summer fixing it up. Took me forever to find the original parts. But after like eight months we got her purring." Johanna's eyes narrowed into the vehicle. "Stick?"

Cressida shook her head. "Automatic."

Johanna smirked. "Pussy."

"Excuse me?" Cressida placed her hands on her hips. "First of all, need I remind you of how misogynistic it is to refer to your own anatomy in a derogatory way? Second of all, they only made four manual transmission GTX's in 1969. It was the last year for the convertible. Only eleven are like Arwen with the Hemi, even fewer with the air grabber. I will not let you try and degrade my choice in transmission simply because you chose the most difficult way to drive."

"Arwen?" Johanna caught, licking her lips and raising her eyebrow.

Finally, Cressida blushed. Johanna smirked triumphantly at finally having chipped away at the thick layers of the older woman. "Yes," Cressida replied crisply. "From Lord of the Rings."

"Oh I know where it's from, _nerd_." Cressida's perfectly painted pink lips formed an offended 'o' shape. Johanna shifted her messenger bag on her shoulder and rejoined Cressida toward the front of the car. She got within just a few inches of the other woman, smelling the intense rose-scented perfume she wore. She leaned into her space slightly. "It's okay _Teach_. My car's name is Joplin."

Cressida's formerly flustered face moved back into its perfectly put together confidence, bordering on indifference. Johanna was reminded of Katniss by Cressida's talent for hiding her emotions. Katniss could switch of her reactions in the blink of an eye. Johanna envied that ability. "Scott or Janis?"

Johanna shrugged, brushing passed the older woman as she walked away. "Either. See you on Monday."

_With a bit of friction, I'll be under your clothes. With a bit of focus, I'll be under your skin._

* * *

Katniss leaned on the rounded table, her eyes darting from her textbook to her notebook with rapidity. The faint clamor of piano keys and the clattering of silverware against china filling her ears as she attempted her Trigonometry homework. It was only November and she was regretting having taken the extra year of mathematics. Her mother had thought it would help her chances of getting into college. She hadn't told Johanna yet, but she had already applied to Stanford in California under their Restrictive Early Action. She would hear by December 15th whether or not she'd been accepted. Johanna hadn't explicitly stated where she was going to apply to college, but Katniss knew that someone of Johanna's talents would have no problem getting into any prestigious music schools, many of which would be on the opposite side of the country.

The lights inside Bogie's club were dim with the exception of a lamp for Katniss that the owner himself had set up, and two lone spotlights shining on Johanna at the piano. Katniss was elated that music had finally started creeping back into Johanna. Haymitch had finally convinced the girl to come back to the band after missing two months of performances. Katniss knew he was worried for Johanna; he seemed to be the closest thing Johanna had to a father figure in her life. He hadn't gone so far as to ask what was wrong, but he could tell - like any good parent - that she was hurting.

Johanna was finally turning that anger and sadness back into music in a more constructive way. Her moods were still a little uncontrollable. Sometimes Katniss would call her and it would be like old times, gentle teasing and loving words. Other time she'd call and it was like talking to a ghost, Johanna was distant and emotionally void.

Johanna's fingers pounded at the keyboard as Haymitch sat nearby, accompanying her on the violin. The tune was "The Promise" by Michael Nyman, a somber and reflective piece she had always thought carried the same atmosphere as a post-apocalyptic wasteland. As she played the piece she imagined a man emerging from a pile of rubble triumphantly, only to find the world he knew destroyed. He'd walk through the abandoned streets, regretfully eyeing the storefronts that were once alive with electricity and light, now deadened and broken.

The piece ended unresolved and Johanna adored it. It was almost like a sentence being cut off. She knew they'd never play it live; nobody wanted to be depressed when they'd spent $60 on a dinner and a show. It moved her to play the piece though. It felt like all the emotions and words tumbling inside her finally had a cadence. If she could play them and make them dissipate into the air like the music itself then maybe it would leave her.

"All right," Haymitch said, placing his violin on the ground. He motioned for one of the men working to turn on the house lights, causing both Johanna and Katniss to flinch in their yellow brightness. "Time to do something less depressing."

"What, like a love song?" Johanna asked scathingly, glaring at the older man.

Haymitch nodded. "Yeah, like a love song," he shot back with a smug grin.

Johanna was not to be tempted. Katniss's ears immediately recognized the pounding piano intro as Johanna played it and she tried to hide her grin in her textbook. Johanna was punishing the ivories with her fingers, staring at Haymitch's light blue eyes.

_Head under water, and they tell me to breathe easy to a while._

Haymitch laughed as Johanna sang, raising his hands on defeat. He walked off the stage as Johanna continued to play, joining Katniss at her homework table. He peered at her page and his face immediately twisted into confusion. "Well that looks like absolute nonsense."

Katniss looked up at the worn blond man and smiled. "That is scarily accurate." The Trigonometry was over her head, and this homework was not going to get done tonight. It was a Friday anyway, Katniss reasoned with herself. She had wanted to get her work done before the weekend so she could have more time with Johanna, but it looked like this was going to be another Sunday late-night assignment.

_I'm unusually hard to hold on to._

Katniss was elated to see the familiar pomposity and challenge in Johanna's eyes as she sang. There was a clarity in her voice that had been missing for the past few months. What Cashmere stole - Katniss and Finnick had narrowed down the list of possible people and had decided most definitely on the vindictive blonde - from Johanna was something intangible. The very essence of what made Johanna tick. Katniss couldn't help but feel responsible and secretly bore that burden. Maybe if she hadn't left that night, maybe if she had just not been so confrontational when Cashmere came to her house, maybe if she had just told Johanna when Cashmere had seen her.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. What if. The hypotheticals buried Katniss when she allowed them, but for Johanna's sake, she attempted to climb out from beneath it and be a pillar for her girlfriend. Talking about what happened was completely off the table but Katniss could at least be a shoulder to cry on and a smile to lift her spirits.

_You mean well, but you make this hard on me._

In what was a vividly selfish thought she wondered when Johanna would let her touch her again. Not necessarily because she was some sex-crazed fiend, but because she wanted to soothe the physical memories Johanna had. She wanted to show her touch was full of love and consent and care. She wanted to lift every mark and bruise Cashmere left with her own kisses. Johanna had only just started allowing their kisses to progress back to the consuming, fiery, bruising embraces of early in their relationship. Passion slowly hissed into their relationship like a slow gas leak.

Katniss tried not to let her anger consume her when she thought about who had done this. Everything she had read late nights on her computer had said that threatening the abuser never helped the victim. She had to physically restrain Finnick from attacking Glimmer. But she herself was wondering when the next opportunity to see Cashmere was. Would she come home for Christmas break? Would she dare try and contact Johanna?

_If all you have is leaving I will need a better reason to write you a love song today._

Katniss closed her textbook and filed it away in her backpack, content to sit and watch Johanna play. Gale approached behind her, waving to Johanna before sitting down next to Katniss. She smiled at her cousin, who lifted his chair to bring it closer to her. He watched Johanna play for a few moments before leaning in as surreptitiously to Katniss as possible.

"I know where she is."

Katniss didn't look over to Gale but she narrowed her eyes. "Who?"

"Cashmere," Gale whispered, smiling at Johanna when she looked toward them.

_I learned the hard way that they all say things you wanna hear._

Her fingers tensed around her soda glass, rubbing the condensation with the tips of her fingers. "Where is she?"

Gale leaned back in his chair, inhaling a deep, slow breath. "Boston. Boston University." Katniss felt relieved. Boston was a long ride from home. There would be no way she would come home for another but major holidays. Gale rubbed his fingers together. "I've never wanted to punch a girl in the face before." Gale had been the only person Katniss felt comfortable speaking to about Johanna. He had reacted similarly to herself - angry, sad, misdirected rage shooting out in all directions. He felt protective of Johanna the same way he was protective of Katniss and his own little sister.

Katniss let out air through her nostrils in a laugh, looking away from Johanna for the first time since Gale had sat down. "I want to kill her."

_My heavy heart sinks deep down under you. Your twisted words, your help just hurts, you're not who I thought you were._

Gale nodded. "I know you do, but that's not going to help Jo."

"I don't need it to help her. I need it to help me." She turned her full attention to her cousin, wild gray eyes desperate. "I want her to suffer for this. I want to see her choke on her last breath. And I don't even know what to do with that feeling. But I can't stop feeling so angry and hurt about it."

"Have you tried talking to Jo?"

Katniss scoffed. "Yeah, that'd be great. While she's dealing with her own emotions about her rape I'm going to tell her that my feelings are hurt?" Gale pursed his lips in understanding, rubbing the small amount of stubble on his chin.

"She loves you. If you are hurting she deserves to know. It's not going to help for you to bottle this in and explode on Cashmere if she comes home for Christmas."

"I'll explode something all over her fucking face." Gale grimaced at her words and Katniss rolled her eyes. "You know what I mean. I don't want to be a burden on Jo."

Gale placed his hand on her shoulder, giving her a small smile. "I'm positive she doesn't think you're a burden." He stood up, giving Johanna another wave. "I'll see you later, Catnip. Don't kill anyone while I'm gone."

"I'll try." Katniss flashed him a grin before he parted, exiting the club behind her. Maybe Katniss did need someone to talk to, but she was sure Johanna was not the solution. Even bringing up Cashmere's name would make them both too angry to continue. She resigned herself to visiting Effie Trinket when she had the chance. Maybe the school's designated counselor would be able to help.

If not, the only other solution would be a several hour drive to Boston to murder Cashmere. And Katniss didn't look good in orange.

_Promise me, you'll leave the light on._

* * *

Author's Note: Gratzi (in Brad Pitt's Inglourius Basterds Italian accent) for the reviews and the new followers! It's hilarious to see the Joniss shippers slowly creeping to Johanna/Cressida. Because truly, the thought of Natalie Dormer and Jena Malone together makes my head burst. In a good way.

Music: "And I Love Her" by the Beatles, "Sentimental Tune" by Tegan and Sara, and "Love Song" by Sara Bareilles.


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